Church stabbing declared a terror incident as weapons history of teenage attacker revealed

A 16-year-old boy who was previously suspended from school for carrying a knife and last year faced a weapons charge is at the centre of a counter-terrorism investigation after a frenzied knife attack on a bishop at the pulpit of a western Sydney church.

Police and intelligence agencies say that while the boy was not on any terrorism watchlist, there were strong indicators the Monday evening attack was religiously motivated.

Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was stabbed multiple times at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley on Monday night.Credit: X/@AustralianJA

Political leaders including NSW Premier Chris Minns and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese have called for calm after a riot broke out at the church in the aftermath of the stabbing, injuring police officers and forcing paramedics to take shelter.

The boy, who cannot legally be identified, allegedly attacked Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel during a livestreamed Bible session at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley, shortly after 7pm.

The bishop, 53, received cuts to his head. A 39-year-old priest who tried to intervene sustained cuts and a shoulder wound. Both men were taken to Liverpool Hospital to be treated for non-life-threatening injuries.

After video of the attack quickly spread on social media, eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant ordered tech platforms to take down all graphic content related to the attack.

Facebook said in a statement it had “taken steps to prevent possible copies of the incident being re-shared”.

NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb, who designated the attack a terrorist incident at 1.35am on Tuesday, said the teenage accused had made comments “around religion” in the lead up to the violence.

“We believe there are elements that are satisfied in terms of religious motivated extremism and of course the intimidation of the public,” Webb said.

Police believe the boy acted alone. No charges have so far been laid over the attack.

He had been suspended from school in 2020 for carrying a knife on school grounds and last year faced a NSW Children’s Court, charged with being armed with intent to commit an indictable offence, stalking/intimidation intending to cause physical harm and damaging/destroying property.

The charge of being armed with intent to commit an offence was withdrawn and dismissed in January, when the matter was finalised and he was given a good behaviour bond for the other two charges.

Responding to reports the teenager had lost a finger in the attack, Minns told 2GB radio this had occurred “in the commission of the alleged crime”, without detailing the circumstances of the injury.

NSW Police, the NSW Crime Commission, the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) on Monday formed a joint counter-terrorism investigation, operating from an undisclosed location.

When asked about the basis for the terrorism designation, ASIO director-general Mike Burgess and AFP Commissioner Reece Kershaw did not discuss specific evidence.

“To call it a terrorist attack you need indications of information or evidence that suggests actually the motivation was religiously motivated or ideologically motivated,” Burgess said at a press conference in Canberra.

“In this case [Wakeley], information that we and the police have before us, it would indicate strongly that is the case and that’s why it was called an act of terrorism.”

Appearing alongside Burgess, the prime minister described the attack as a “disturbing incident”.

“There is no place for violence in our community,” Albanese said. “We’re a peace-loving nation. This is a time to unite, not divide, as a community, and as a country.”

Greg Barton, an expert on terrorism and violent extremism at Deakin University, said authorities acted with “significant speed” to say they suspected the stabbing was an act of terrorism.

He said police likely had “good reasons” to do so, including evidence gained from their interviews with the teenager, his social media footprint and what he shouted out while carrying out the attack.

“He was a pretty open book,” Barton said of the assailant.

Barton noted many members of Sydney’s Assyrian community had fled brutality by the Islamic State terror organisation in Iraq, making Monday night’s stabbing a highly distressing moment for them.

It took police two months to label the December 2022 shooting of two police officers and a neighbour in the Queensland town of Wieambilla a Christian terrorist attack.

The terrorism designation provides police with extraordinary powers, including the ability to conduct searches of people, vehicles and premises without a warrant.

Independent federal MP Dai Le, whose south-west Sydney electorate includes Wakeley, questioned the decision, which was made by the police commissioner and affirmed by the Police Minister Yasmin Catley.

“I’m not exaggerating, I feel sick in the stomach,” Le told the ABC, adding that she hoped the decision had been properly justified and would not fuel further fear.

Earlier she said the church was one of seven Assyrian churches that were much loved and charitable.

Lakemba Mosque in the city’s west will have extra security in the coming week after firebombing threats were made on Monday night.

Imam Jamal-Ud-Din El-Kiki said tensions in the Muslim community were running high and he was wary of the terrorism designation.

“I think it’s a politically loaded term,” El-Kiki said. “I’m concerned about this being treated as a Muslim problem. I think it’s about a teenager who had a knife who decided to commit a horrific action.”

The imam said his community was praying for the bishop’s recovery.

Minns said declaring the church attack as a terrorist incident was “not a performative gesture” designed to go on a media release, and that the decision had been affirmed by the AFP.

He warned against reprisal violence.

“There is no such thing in Australia as taking the law into your own hands,” Minns said. “You will be met by the full force of the law if there’s any attempt of tit-for-tat violence in Sydney over the coming days.”

Police have vowed to prosecute members of a crowd that rioted outside the Christ The Good Shepherd Church on Monday night after police apprehended the alleged attacker.

“The crowd turned on police,” Webb said. “People used what was available to them in the area, including bricks, concrete pilings, to assault police and throw missiles at police and police equipment, police vehicles.”

Four police were injured and 20 police vehicles were damaged, 10 of which were rendered unusable.

NSW Ambulance Commissioner Dominic Morgan said paramedics responded to 30 patients over a period of about three-and-a-half hours and that crowd numbers had grown to include hundreds of people in a “rapidly evolving situation”.

“Our paramedics became directly under threat, supported by police, and had to retreat into the church,” Morgan said.

Paramedics were “holed up” in the church for more than three hours, he added.

Leaders across Muslim and Christian faith denominations have urged harmony and calm in the wake of the attack, which targeted a bishop known for at times inflammatory rhetoric.

When Bishop Emmanuel was attacked he was livestreaming on Facebook, where he has 291,000 followers. Sometimes referred to as “the TikTok bishop” due to his appearances in short-form videos, he has criticised COVID-19 lockdowns and previously said he would not recognise transgender people as human.

Other viral livestreams of his feature hardline views about American and Russian politics, as well as the claim that Satan founded the United Nations.

Emannuel said in a video that an interview he gave last year had upset some in his “beloved Muslim world”.

“I love you, and I will always love you, and I pray for you, and I will always continue to pray for you, whether you like me, hate me, accept me or reject me,” he said, adding that no religious figure could compare to Jesus.

Emmanuel previously preached in western Sydney at St Zaia’s Cathedral, which belongs to the Ancient Church of the East, before starting his own “Assyrian Orthodox” church.

A 15-year-old who lived near the Christ the Good Shepherd Church told this masthead his community loved the bishop and would protect him like a father.

“I don’t understand a guy my age doing this,” the teenager said. “I’m just at home playing games. I just don’t understand that.”

With Carrie Fellner, Harriet Alexander, Clare Sibthorpe, Perry Duffin, Michael McGowan, Paul Sakkal, Rachel Clun, Lucy Carroll, Joesfine Ganko, Jessica McSweeney

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