Kenya Cult Leader Paul Mackenzie Found Guilty of Murdering 190 Children and One Adult

MOMBASA, Kenya. A Kenyan court on Monday found starvation cult leader Paul Mackenzie guilty of murder over the deaths of 190 children and one adult in the Shakahola forest, Reuters reported. Mackenzie was convicted along with about 30 other suspects on 191 counts of murder, in one of the worst cult related disasters in recent history.

Justice Diana Kavedza Mochache of the Mombasa High Court began reading the judgment at 9:30 in the morning and continued until 6:29 in the evening, The Eastleigh Voice reported. The court found that the prosecution had proved its case beyond reasonable doubt. It rejected the defence argument that the victims had voluntarily fasted to death.

What the court found

The judge found that Mackenzie instructed his followers to starve themselves and their children to death, and that some of his co-accused enforced his orders, The Eastleigh Voice reported. The court heard that victims died from starvation and from other causes, including asphyxia, manual strangulation and suffocation.

In some cases, children were isolated and denied food while their parents watched, Justice Mochache said during the hearing, Reuters reported. The court also found that victims, including children, were subjected to physical and mental torture under an organised system of control.

Mackenzie was in court wearing a striped polo shirt and red trousers, sitting alongside his wife, who is one of the co-accused, Reuters reported. When his name was read out, he stood silently, staring into space.

Families of some of those who died gathered at the court to hear the judgment. Francis Wanje, 62, lost eight family members, including two grandchildren, to the cult. Speaking before the verdict, he told Reuters: "It has been really a heavy thing for us as a family, and it has really taken us very far in terms of psychological problems. I was hoping for this particular day."

How the case began

Mackenzie was arrested in 2023 after police received a tip-off. Weeks later, authorities began uncovering bodies in shallow graves in the Shakahola Forest, near the coast in southeastern Kenya, close to the town of Malindi.

More than 400 bodies have been recovered from the forest in total. Many were severely decomposed, and only 26 were able to be identified. Monday's judgment covered 191 deaths, while investigations into the other deaths are ongoing, Reuters reported.

The church and the fasting

Mackenzie, a former taxi driver, founded the Good News International Church in 2003. Prosecutors say he and the church ran a Christian doomsday sect in which followers were ordered to starve themselves and their children to death to go to heaven before the world ended. Mackenzie denied the murder charges, saying he did not force the victims to starve.

People with direct knowledge of the cult's activities told Reuters that Mackenzie planned the mass starvation in three phases: first children, then women and young men, and finally the remaining men. Followers said he forbade members from sending their children to school or going to hospital when ill, branding such institutions as Satanic.

Questions over the authorities

The case raised questions over how Mackenzie kept operating for so long. He had been on the radar of the authorities since 2017, when police searched his premises. In 2019, authorities shut down his church and he relocated to the Shakahola Forest, police said. President William Ruto said in 2023 that government agencies should have been able to prevent the deaths, and said he took responsibility as president.

What happens next

Mackenzie and his co-accused will be sentenced on November 6, Reuters reported. He faces other charges over the forest deaths, including terrorism related charges, which he has denied. Prosecutors say that while in detention he also directed the deaths of 52 people in Kwa Binzaro village, about 30 kilometres from Shakahola. He has pleaded not guilty in that case.