Cops charge another teen in Sydney cleric’s stabbing

Cops charge another teen in Sydney cleric’s stabbing

The boy, 15, is charged with conspiring to prepare a terrorist act.

Flowers sit on a fence outside the Christ the Good Shepherd church in Wakely in western Sydney, Australia. (AP pic)
SYDNEY:
Australian police have charged another teenager with a terrorism-related offence in investigations after the stabbing of an Assyrian Christian bishop while he was giving a livestreamed sermon in Sydney earlier this month.

The boy, 15, was charged with conspiring to prepare a terrorist act, New South Wales police said late on Friday, adding that his case would be heard in a children’s court on Saturday.

The attack on Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel, injured in the April 15 attack at his church, came only days after a deadly mass stabbing in Bondi. Gun and knife crime is rare in Sydney, one of the world’s safest big cities.

Police on Thursday laid terrorism-related charges against five other teenagers, allegedly associates of a boy, 16, previously charged over the knifing of Emmanuel.

The bearded Emmanuel, bishop at the Christ The Good Shepherd Church in the Sydney suburb of Wakeley, is a social media star with followers around the world and a fiery critic of homosexuality, COVID vaccinations, Islam and US president Joe Biden’s election.

The Assyrian Church, which has its world headquarters in Iraq, is a Christian sect with its historical origins in parts of modern Turkey, Syria and Iran.

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