Boy accused of stabbings nd showed no signs of extremism
The father of a boy accused of stabbing two Christian clerics in Australia saw no signs of his son’s extremism, a Muslim community leader said yesterday.
His comments came as police prepared to file charges against rioters who besieged a Sydney church demanding revenge.
The 16-year-old boy spoke in Arabic about the Prophet Muhammad after he stabbed Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel and the Reverend Isaac Royel during a service on Monday night that was being streamed online. Neither cleric suffered life-threatening injuries.
The Orthodox Assyrian congregation overpowered the boy and he remained in an undisclosed hospital yesterday under police guard. He suffered severe hand wounds in the struggle.
Lebanese Muslim Association secretary Gamel Kheir, an advocate for Sydney’s largest Muslim community, said he spent two hours with the boy’s distraught father at the family home soon after the attack. The family have since left their home for fear of retaliation.
“He was in shock,” Mr Kheir told Australian Broadcasting Corp of the father, who has not been identified.
“He was not aware of any signs of becoming more extreme other than the fact that he was becoming more disobedient to his father. But that was about it. He didn’t see any tell-tale signs, so to speak,” he added.
Mr Kheir is among several community leaders who have accused police of unnecessarily raising community tensions with a premature declaration on Tuesday that the attack at Christ the Good Shepherd Church fitted the definition of a terrorist act under New South Wales state law.
“I’m concerned that we’ve rushed to a pre-judgment of a 16-year-old child,” he said.
“He used the language of religion, we’re not debating that at all. In a sense that he targeted another religion, that’s not debatable.
“What’s debatable is what mental state was this child in? Was he of a sane mind to even make such a rational call? All we’re saying is, surely there was time for the police to do a more thorough investigation and a review before they labelled it a terrorist act.”
New South Wales Police Commissioner Karen Webb yesterday stood by her declaration of a terrorist incident.
The attack met terror legislation’s criteria of having a political, religious or ideological motivation and was intended to cause intimidation, she said.
“I was satisfied, based on the information that was provided very early Tuesday morning, that it met that criteria and I made that declaration without any hesitation,” she said.
Police are also investigating the conduct of 600 people who converged on the church on Monday night and demanded police hand over the boy, who was temporarily barricaded inside for his own safety.
The crowd hurled bricks, bottles and fence boards at police. Two police officers were taken to hospital and several police vehicles were damaged.
Security has been elevated at Sydney mosques since Monday when fire bombing threats were made.
I made that declaration [of a terror incident] without any hesitation Police Commissioner Karen Webb, above