Police records reported in press sources on Monday reveal that four teens planned to purchase firearms and carry out attacks against Jews, just days after a Sydney church saw a bishop stabbed. A Sydney court last Thursday accused five teenagers, ages 14 to 17, with a variety of charges, including plotting or organizing a terrorist attack. The AP reports on this development. All of them, according to police, "adhered to a religiously motivated, violent extremist ideology" and were connected to a 16-year-old teenager who was accused of stabbing Assyrian Orthodox Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel on April 15 as a church ceremony was being broadcast live online.
Two of the suspects accused last week spoke about purchasing firearms on April 19, the day the bishop's alleged assailant was charged, according to a police fact file submitted to the Sydney Children's Court, as reported by News Corp Australia newspapers. Four teenagers, ages fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen, were charged last week. They reportedly planned their assault using the encrypted messaging app Signal. One of them is said to have said, "whatever happens, it is the qadr (predetermination) of Allah," according to the media. The parents of the 16-year-old accused of stabbing the bishop and a priest, however, indicated in an interview with Australian Broadcasting Corp. that while their son was aggressive and may have had autistic spectrum condition, he was not a terrorist.
Two of the suspects accused last week spoke about purchasing firearms on April 19, the day the bishop's alleged assailant was charged, according to a police fact file submitted to the Sydney Children's Court, as reported by News Corp Australia newspapers. Four teenagers, ages fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen, were charged last week. They reportedly planned their assault using the encrypted messaging app Signal. One of them is said to have said, "whatever happens, it is the qadr (predetermination) of Allah," according to the media. The parents of the 16-year-old accused of stabbing the bishop and a priest, however, indicated in an interview with Australian Broadcasting Corp. that while their son was aggressive and may have had autistic spectrum condition, he was not a terrorist.
