A Kenyan court has found doomsday cult leader Paul Mackenzie guilty of murdering 191 people, all but one of them children, in one of the country’s deadliest cases of religiously motivated mass deaths.
Twenty-eight other leaders associated with Mackenzie’s cult were also convicted. All had pleaded not guilty, insisting that followers were not forced to die.
Delivering an eight-hour judgment in the coastal city of Mombasa, Justice Diana Mochache said Mackenzie’s followers regarded him as “Jesus’s mouthpiece”. Prosecutors presented evidence that members were instructed to starve themselves and their children to death to meet Jesus.
The cult’s teachings prohibited formal education and described modern medicine as evil. One witness told the court that a pregnant woman was prevented from nursing her newborn, who died 12 days later, and was instructed to fast to death.
Mackenzie was arrested in 2023 after authorities discovered mass graves in Shakahola Forest near Kenya’s coast. More than 400 bodies have since been discovered, with many victims believed to have died from starvation, while others suffered violence. Some remains remain unidentified.
The case has exposed the devastating consequences of the group’s teachings and raised concerns about the protection of vulnerable people from religious extremism.
Mackenzie founded Good News International Ministries in 2003, building a following through church branches and a television station that broadcast his sermons. After the main church closed in 2019, he moved to Shakahola Forest and encouraged followers to join him.
The pastor is due to be sentenced on November 6. He and other members of the group also face separate legal proceedings involving terrorism, radicalisation and denying children access to education.
For families of the victims, the convictions mark a significant moment in the pursuit of justice. Stephen Mwiti, who lost all six of his children in Shakahola, told the BBC he was happy that those accused had been convicted.
