THE FATHER of a teenage “terrorist” arrested for stabbing a bishop at a Sydney church claims he saw no signs of radicalism in his son.
Members of the teen’s family are now in hiding following a violent riot involving thousands of furious Sydneysiders.
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A shocking YouTube livestream showed Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel, 53, being attacked while delivering a sermon Wakeley’s Assyrian Christ The Good Shepherd Church just after 7pm on Monday night.
Three others were treated for injuries at the scene as a man in his 50s was rushed to hospital with stab wounds.
Police deemed the swift and brutal knife attack a “terrorist incident” motivated by suspected religious extremism.
Lebanese Muslim Association secretary Gamel Kheir said on Wednesday that the suspect boy’s father had seen no signs of radicalism in his son.
Read more on the stabbing
Mr Kheir told Reuters: “He said other than him being rebellious to him… there were no signs. There were absolutely no signs to him.”
The community leader had been with the boy’s father when he left his home to take shelter in a local mosque on Monday, as thousands gathered to riot outside the church where the bishop was attacked.
Two police officers were reportedly injured and 20 police vehicles damaged as some in a crowd of about 2,000 shouted for the teen’s surrender and called to “cut off the fingers” of the attacker.
The teenage suspect was at the time locked inside the building for his safety, and later shifted to a secure and undisclosed location.
A police officer told local media: “The crowd was attacking us, throwing things and being aggressive as we tried to help their bishop. I said to them ‘we are not your enemy’.”
Police said the boy’s family had temporarily moved out of their western Sydney home for fear of reprisals.
Meanwhile, the Lakemba mosque in Sydney’s southwest, one of Australia‘s largest, received firebomb threats on Monday night.
Two security guards had to be employed to protect the mosque, Mr Kheir said.
About 40 per cent of Australia‘s 42,000-strong Assyrian population are said to live in the area around the Wakeley church.
A woman named Maria, whose family migrated from Iraq in 1993, told Reuters: “It’s very devastating, the Assyrian community have come from Iraq because they had been persecuted for being Christian.
“(Monday’s) attack on our faith is just an old reminder of what happened back home.”
The knife attack was the second to hit Sydney in as many days, after killer Joel Cauchi, 40, unleashed horror at a mall near Bondi Beach on Saturday and killed six people including five women and one man.
Knife-obsessed Cauchi is said by police to have had an “obvious” goal of targeting women in his deadly knife rampage.
His dad, Andrew, told reporters when asked about why his son my have targeted women: “He wanted a girlfriend and he’s got no social skills and he was frustrated out of his brain.”
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