Kenyan doomsday cult leader charged with murder of nearly 200 children

A Kenyan high court on Tuesday (Feb 6) charged cult leader Paul Mackenzie and his 29 associates with the murder of nearly 200 children who were found among hundreds of others from the Shakahola forest, last year.

What happened in the court?

The Malindi High Court charged Mackenzie, the head of the Good News International Church and self-proclaimed pastor, who according to prosecutors, ordered his followers in southeastern Kenya to starve themselves and their children to death so that they could go to heaven before the world ended.

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Mackenzie and the 29 others pleaded not guilty to the charges which include 191 counts of murder, including of three infants, reported AFP citing court documents. One suspect was found mentally unfit to stand trial.

ALSO READ |Kenyan cult leader to face murder charges in starvation deaths

The incident which emerged last year sent shockwaves across the world and is being dubbed as one of the worst cult-related disasters in recent history.

The alleged leader of a doomsday cult has already been charged with terrorism, manslaughter as well as child torture and cruelty. Mackenzie was arrested last April.

In December, Mackenzie was convicted and sentenced to 12 months in jail for producing and distributing films without a licence.

The trial for the alleged leader of a doomsday cult begins on March 7.

What we know about the case

In 2023, more than 400 bodies were uncovered over months of exhumations across tens of thousands of acres of the Shakahola forest in eastern Kenya.

(Trigger warning: Some readers may find details of this report disturbing. Discretion is advised.)

The autopsies later revealed that the majority of the 429 victims had died of hunger, but others, including children, appeared to have been strangled, beaten or suffocated.

According to a chargesheet filed last month at the Tononoka Children’s Court in the city of Mombasa, Mackenzie and 38 other suspects “wilfully and intentionally” denied food to children as young as six years old and whipped others with thorny sticks, reported AFP.

ALSO READ |Children were targetted to die first in Kenya doomsday cult killings: Report

Last year, a New York Times report citing a former deputy preacher of the cult, Titus Katana, revealed that there was a methodical plan for mass suicide through starvation and children were the first to perish and were asked to “to fast in the sun so they would die faster”.

Katana also reportedly revealed that children were treated brutally by being shut in huts for five days without food or water.

Mackenzie forbade cult members from sending their children to school and going to the hospital when they were ill, calling such institutions Satanic, reported Reuters citing some of his followers.

(With inputs from agencies)