A Kenyan cult leader has been sentenced to 200 years in prison for the murder of 191 people, all but one of them children, in a campaign of abuse and forced fasting.
Paul Mackenzie, founder of the Good News International Church, was sentenced alongside more than two dozen others in the Mombasa High Court on Friday.
Mackenzie’s sentence included 100 years’ imprisonment for the murder of those who died of starvation and 100 years for those who died by direct homicide.
In her sentencing remarks, Judge Diana Kavedza said 161 of the victims were children aged 9 or younger. Twenty-two were between 10 and 13 years old and five between 14 and 16 years old. The ages of the other two could not be established. She also said several children of the convicts were still missing and presumed dead.
Kavedza said 183 of the 191 victims died of starvation, including 182 children and one adult. The other eight victims, all children, were suffocated, strangled or beaten to death.
Mackenzie had persuaded his followers to abandon their homes and settle in the Shakahola forest in eastern Kenya, promising that fasting there would bring them closer to God and prepare them for paradise.
The court found that religious teachings were used to enforce the fast. The guards controlled the movements of the partisans and prevented them from leaving. Those who resisted were forced to comply, while children were restrained, deprived of food, and punished when they tried to eat or escape.
Mackenzie’s teachings were largely based on apocalyptic and end-of-days beliefs, according to a Kenyan Senate report into the deaths. He preached that the end of the world would occur in August 2023, and his followers were asked to fast to “meet Jesus”, with children to die first, followed by youth and women. Men were supposed to stay alive long enough to bury the bodies before dying.
Mackenzie was convicted of murder last month. In his ruling, Kavedza described how he used sermons and written materials to convince his followers that the outside world was evil and that salvation could only be found in the forest. Messages retrieved from his phone, including WhatsApp exchanges, showed that he had communicated with his followers before they moved to Shakahola Forest.
Survivors also testified that deaths in the forest were celebrated as “weddings with Jesus,” and those who died were considered “heroes of faith,” Kavedza said.
Autopsy findings cited by the judge showed that hunger was not the only cause of death. Some victims died from suffocation, neck compression or head injuries.
Authorities began exhuming Shakahola’s bodies in April 2023 after reports that people had died while following Mackenzie’s teachings. So far, they have recovered 429 bodies. The 191 murder convictions relate to victims in the case decided last month, while more charges could follow.
Rodgers Shibutse, a Nairobi resident who identified his mother’s remains among those exhumed in February 2024, told CNN after the sentencing Friday: “I can’t say I’m 100% satisfied. It (the verdict) is not enough to pay for my mother’s life, but we have no other choice. At least he (Mackenzie) cannot complete the 200 years in prison and will eventually die.”
This is a developing story and has been updated.
Gn world
