Kenyan doomsday cult leader and followers convicted of murdering 190 children in mass starvation
MOMBASA, Kenya — A Kenyan court on Monday found starvation cult leader Paul Mackenzie and about 30 others guilty of murder over the deaths of 190 children and one adult in one of the world’s worst cult-related disasters in recent history.Mackenzie and his co-accused will be given their sentence on Nov.6.He 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 organized 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.Mackenzie denied murder charges, saying he did not force the victims to starve, but the court rejected that argument.In total, more than 400 bodies have been recovered from the Shakahola Forest.
Many were severely decomposed, with only 26 bodies able to be identified.Monday’s judgment covered 191 deaths while 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.Mackenzie was in court, wearing a striped polo shirt and red trousers, sitting alongside his wife who is one of the co-accused.When his name was read out by the judge he stood silently, staring into space.Family members of some of those who died in the forest gathered to hear the judgment at Mombasa High Court.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.”The Shakahola tragedy has gripped Kenya since the discovery of mass graves in the coastal forest more than three ...