SYDNEY – Australian police have charged another teenager with a terrorism-related offence in investigations on the stabbing of an Assyrian Christian bishop while he was giving a livestreamed sermon in Sydney earlier this month.

The boy, 15, was charged with conspiring to prepare a terrorist act, New South Wales police said late on April 26, adding that his case would be heard in a children’s court on April 27.

The April 15 attack on Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel came only days after a deadly mass stabbing in Bondi. Gun and knife crime is rare in Sydney, one of the world’s safest big cities.

Police on April 25 laid terrorism-related charges against five other teenagers, allegedly associates of a boy, 16, previously charged over the knifing of Emmanuel.

The bearded bishop at the Christ The Good Shepherd Church in the Sydney suburb of Wakeley is a social media star with followers around the world, and a fiery critic of homosexuality, Covid-19 vaccinations, Islam and US President Joe Biden’s election.

The Assyrian Church, which has its world headquarters in Iraq, is a Christian sect with its historical origins in parts of modern Turkey, Syria and Iran. REUTERS