Teenager charged with terrorism over Australia church stabbing attack | Crime News [Video]

A 16-year-old Australian boy has been charged with “committing a terrorist act”, police said, over the stabbing of an Assyrian church bishop in western Sydney during a livestreamed service.

The teenage suspect was taken to hospital following the attack on Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel and was charged in the children’s court on Friday morning.

He did not appear in court and his lawyer did not ask for bail, according to Australia’s public service broadcaster ABC.

Police charged the teenager after a search of electronic devices at his home and an interview at his hospital bed. He faces a life sentence, if found guilty.

Defence lawyer Greg Scragg told the court that arrangements were being made for a forensic psychologist to visit the boy in hospital and “assess him for treatment and in relation to his fitness”.

He added that the boy had “a long history of behaviour consistent with suffering from a mental illness and or mental condition and or …