NewzA Kenyan pastor has been convicted on 191 murder charges after he forced followers to starve their children and themselves so they would die and have an opportunity to enter heaven and be with Jesus. Pastor Paul Mackenzie was convicted alongside 28 others who helped run a sect connected to Mackenzie’s Good News International Church in coastal southeast Kenya. A judge said in her ruling Monday that MacKenzie and his helpers and guards controlled a system in which religious teachings and a church hierarchy were used to enforce “deadly fasting” on followers after they set up a community in a forest.
The murder charges involve the deaths of 190 children and one adult. Mackenzie and others also face separate manslaughter, terrorism and child torture charges in the deaths of more than 230 others. He has denied all the charges, saying he didn’t force his followers to starve themselves.
His co-defendants in that case have also pleaded not guilty. Mackenzie and the others face life in prison at their sentencing for the murder convictions, scheduled for Nov. Kenya has the death penalty, but has not executed anyone since 1987, and has left capital punishment to the judge’s discretion since a Supreme Court ruling in 2017 that mandatory death penalties for murder are unconstitutional.
Here’s what to know about one of the world’s worst cult-related tragedies: The sect was discovered in a forest in 2023 The sect was uncovered in April 2023 after Mackenzie had closed his church premises in the coastal resort town of Malindi and moved with hundreds of followers inland to the nearby Shakahola Forest. Police investigating reports of people going missing found emaciated followers and shallow graves spread across a large ranch in the forest. It took weeks to exhume more than 400 bodies, many of them from mass graves.
For most, starvation was the cause of death in what became known as the Shakahola massacre, but some died from suffocation, strangulation or head injuries, according to postmortem reports. The cause of death for others couldn’t be determined because the bodies had decomposed. A small number of victims died soon after being rescued because they were so emaciated.
Mackenzie is a former taxi driver turned preacher Mackenzie is a former street vendor and taxi driver who set up his evangelical Good News International Church in Malindi in 2003. NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The leader of a Kenyan doomsday cult linked to more than 400 deaths was convicted Monday of murdering 190 children and one adult after ordering followers to starve themselves to death to meet Jesus.Justice Diana Kavedza ruled that Pastor Paul Mackenzie, leader of the Good News International Church, oversaw an organized system that used religious teachings to compel followers to fast until they died.In 2023, more than 400 bodies were exhumed from shallow graves on the 800-acre (320-hectare) Chakama Ranch in coastal Kilifi County, where Mackenzie’s followers lived in mud huts, away from the scrutiny of local communities and authorities.Mackenzie was arrested and charged with murder alongside his wife and dozens of his followers. Some followers later became prosecution witnesses in the case.
Summary from source