Kenya: sect leaders found guilty of killing 191 people

Sect leader Paul Mackenzie (r.) in court in Mombasa: Extreme fasting practices “caused and directed”

A court in Mombasa, Kenya, has convicted cult leader Paul Mackenzie of killing 191 people. The self-proclaimed pastor had urged his followers to starve themselves to death in order to “meet Jesus.” Most of his victims were children.

Since 2023, more than 400 bodies have been discovered in a forest near the coastal village of Malindi. In court, there were now 191 concrete deaths. In addition to Mackenzie, other alleged accomplices were charged. “I believe that the prosecution has proven the guilt of the 29 defendants in the murder of 190 children and one adult,” said Judge Diana Kavedza Mochache.

According to the competent public prosecutor’s office, Mackenzie had “caused and directed” extreme fasting practices at his ranch in the Shakahola forest. The authority speaks of a "structured hierarchy of death".

Accordingly, it was planned that first children, then teenagers and women should die – finally the men. The children were mostly starved, but also killed by "suffocation, strangulation and serious head injuries," the accusers said during the trial. This is apparent from autopsy and police reports.

During the excavations in the Shakahola forest, hundreds of bodies were found in mass graves

Mackenzie and his co-defendants had pleaded not guilty on all 191 counts. In separate trials, Mackenzie also rejected accusations of manslaughter and terrorism in further cases.

The police arrested Mackenzie in April 2023 after human rights groups gave a hint to the authorities and some supporters of the cult leader were rescued from starvation.

In the investigation, the police came across hundreds of mass graves. Due to the high number of deaths, the salvage work had to be interrupted temporarily because there was no room in the local morgues.

When it became known that Mackenzie had been arrested and released twice in the past, many Kenyans demanded stricter regulations for religious associations. So do the relatives of the victims.

The 62-year-old Francis Wanje, who lost eight family members, including his daughter and two grandchildren, to the starvation cult, criticized the AFP news agency for the initial inaction of the government. Before the verdict he said: “We expect a verdict that will be a lesson to the whole public, so that such things do not happen again.”.