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| Paul Mackenzie |
NAIROBI, Jan 28 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The leader of a Kenyan cult accused of encouraging his followers to starve themselves to death will be charged over a further 52 deaths at another village, prosecutors say.
Self-proclaimed pastor Paul Mackenzie was arrested in 2023 after 429 bodies, including children, were dug up from mass graves in the remote Shakahola forest.
He has been in custody since his arrest and has been accused of luring the latest victims to their deaths by writing notes from his prison cell.
Mackenzie has pleaded not guilty to multiple counts of manslaughter.
The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions said in a statement on X on Monday that it had received the go-ahead to “formally charge Good News International Church leader Paul Nthenge Mackenzie and his co-accused over the deaths of 52 people at the Binzaro homestead in Kilifi County”.
Mackenzie was “reasonably suspected to have masterminded” the incidents and had used “radical teachings and coordinated structures to lure victims” to the remote village, the prosecutors said.
“Investigators recovered handwritten notes from [prison] cells occupied by Mackenzie, allegedly detailing transactions conducted through mobile phones,” it added.
Mackenzie and others will be charged with various offences, including radicalisation, “facilitation of terrorist acts”, and murder over the more recent killings, in addition to the initial charges related to the mass graves found in the forest of Shakahola, prosecutors said.
Last year, around 34 bodies and more than 100 body parts were discovered by investigators in Binzaro, around 30 km (20 miles) from Shakahola along the Indian Ocean coast. This is what has led to the latest charges.
They come two weeks after one of Mackenzie’s co-accused and the former head of security at Shakahola, Enos Amanya Ngala, pleaded guilty to charges related to the deaths of 191 children found in the original mass graves.
Survivors say children were supposed to be the first to starve themselves, according to a macabre order drawn up by Mackenzie. Then the unmarried, women, men, and last of all, church leaders.
Mackenzie set up his Good News International Church in 2003, but said he had closed it in 2019.
He encouraged his followers to move to Shakahola forest and prepare for the end of the world to “meet Jesus”.
Mackenzie preached that formal education was satanic and used to extort money.
In 2017 and again in 2018, he was arrested for encouraging children not to go to school as he claimed education was “not recognised in the Bible”.
The authorities have faced criticism after the discovery of the mass grave, with accusations that the deaths could have been prevented had there been tougher regulations. — NNN-AGENCIES