Kenyan starvation cult leader convicted of deaths of nearly 200 children

By Jefferson Kahinju

MOMBASA, Kenya, Oct 19 (Reuters) – Starvation cult leader Paul Mackenzie and 28 others were found guilty of murder by a Kenyan court on Monday over the deaths of 190 children and an adult in one of the world’s worst cult-related tragedies in recent history.

The preacher was arrested in 2023 after police received a tip-off, and weeks later authorities began uncovering bodies in shallow graves in the Shakahola Forest near the coast in southeastern Kenya.

Prosecutors say Mackenzie and his Good News International Church organised a Christian doomsday sect in which they ordered followers to starve themselves and their children to death to go to heaven before the world ended.

The case has gripped Kenya since the discovery of the mass graves.

It raised questions over how Mackenzie was able to continue to operate despite having been on the radar of the authorities since 2017 when his premises were searched by police. In 2019, authorities shut down Mackenzie’s church and he relocated to the Shakahola Forest, police said. 

GRANDFATHER HAILS JUDGMENT

Mackenzie denied murder charges, saying he did not force the victims to starve, but the court rejected that argument.

He and the others convicted will be sentenced on November 6. Defence lawyer Lawrence Obonyo, who represents Mackenzie and almost all of the others convicted, said he had been instructed to appeal.

Francis Wanje, 62, lost eight family members including two grandchildren to the cult. He told Reuters that the judgment made him happy and gave him confidence in the judiciary.

“So many are going to learn from what has come up today. … You find churches everywhere, but they’ve got ill reasons for the churches. So it is good for members of the public to be very careful,” Wanje added.

HEARING LASTED MORE THAN EIGHT HOURS

In total, more than 400 bodies have been recovered from the Shakahola Forest. 

Many of the children’s bodies were severely decomposed, with only 26 able to be identified, and investigations into the other deaths are ongoing. 

Justice Diana Kavedza Mochache said in a hearing lasting more than eight hours that in some cases children were isolated and denied food while their parents watched.

The director of public prosecutions, Renson Ingonga, told reporters afterwards at the Mombasa High Court: “That is the best judgment we would ever get.”

MACKENZIE SILENT WHEN JUDGE CALLED HIM BY NAME

Mackenzie was in court, wearing a striped polo shirt and red trousers, sitting alongside his wife, one of the co-accused.

When his name was read out by the judge he was silent, staring into space.

The case has led to calls for tougher oversight of churches and other religious organisations in a country where religious faith plays a prominent role in public life.

Kenyan President William Ruto said in 2023 that government agencies should have been able to prevent the deaths. He said he took responsibility as president. 

CHILDREN WERE FIRST TO STARVE

People with direct knowledge of the cult’s activities have told Reuters that Mackenzie planned the mass starvation in three phases: first children, then women and young men, and finally the remaining men.

A former taxi driver, Mackenzie forbade cult members from sending their children to school and from going to hospital when they were ill, branding such institutions as satanic, relatives of some of his victims told Reuters for a 2023 article.

Cult members lived in makeshift homes of polythene sheeting and thatch that Mackenzie divided into areas with biblical names like Jerusalem and Judea.

The plight of his followers began to emerge in mid-March 2023, when a local man told police that his brother and wife had starved their children to death in the forest on Mackenzie’s orders.

Mackenzie was arrested but released on bail, after which relatives say he brought forward the date on which he told his followers the world would end. Police arrested him again in April 2023 and started combing through the forest more systematically and began exhuming mass graves.

Mackenzie faces other charges over the forest deaths including terrorism-related ones, which he has denied.

Prosecutors say while he was in detention he also directed the deaths of 52 people in Kwa Binzaro village, which lies about 30 km (18 miles) from Shakahola. Mackenzie has pleaded not guilty in that case.

(Reporting by Jefferson Kahinju in Mombasa, and Vincent Mumo Nzilani, George Obulutsa, Edwin Okoth and Humphrey Malalo in Nairobi;Writing by Vincent Mumo Nzilani and Alexander Winning;Editing by William Maclean, David Lewis, Jon Boyle and Alison Williams)