"Promoted the end of the world in 2023"... Kenya: 200 years imprisonment for a sect leader who caused the deaths of 190 children

A Kenyan cult leader has been sentenced to 200 years in prison for killing 191 people, all but one of them children, in a campaign of abuse and forced fasting.

The ruling was issued on Friday against Paul McKenzie, founder of the Good News International Church, along with more than twenty-four other people, in the High Court in Mombasa.

McKenzie was promoting that the world would end in August 2023, and that his followers would have to fast in order to enter heaven. According to a report by the Kenyan Senate on these deaths, his teachings were based on beliefs related to "the Day of Judgment and the end of time." Children were to die first, followed by young men and women, and men were expected to survive long enough to bury the bodies before dying.

The sentence issued against Mackenzie included 100 years in prison for the murder of people who died of starvation, and another 100 years for those who died as a result of premeditated murder.

In her speech when pronouncing the sentence, Judge Diana Cavedza said that she did not impose the death penalty, because that might reinforce the conviction of the convicts that death will unite them with Christ, instead of acting as a deterrent to them. She also wanted to leave open the possibility that they could help find the remains of missing children.

She said: “In the opinion of this honorable court, such a punishment (the death penalty) will therefore not achieve its purpose of deterrence.”

Cavidza said that 161 of the victims were children nine years old or younger, while 22 of them were between 10 and 13 years old, and five were between 14 and 16 years old, while the ages of two others could not be determined. She added that many children of convicts are still missing and are likely dead.

She added that 183 of the 191 victims died of starvation, including 182 children and one adult. The other eight victims - all children - died of suffocation, suffocation, or beatings to death.

MacKenzie convinced his followers to leave their homes and move to the Shakahola Forest in eastern Kenya, promising them that fasting there would bring them closer to God and prepare them to enter Paradise.

The court concluded that religious teachings were used to enforce fasting, as guards monitored the movements of followers and prevented them from leaving. Those who resisted were forced to comply, and children were tied up, deprived of food, and punished when they tried to eat or escape.

McKenzie was convicted of murder last month.

In her judgement, Judge Cavedza explained how MacKenzie used speeches and written materials to convince his followers that the outside world was evil, and that salvation could only be achieved within the forest. Messages extracted from his phone, including WhatsApp conversations, revealed that he was communicating with his followers before they moved to the Shakahola Forest.

Judge Cavedza stated that most of the convicts showed no remorse for their actions, and McKenzie smiled several times during the sentencing hearing on Friday.

Cavidza said survivors reported that deaths inside the forest were celebrated as a “wedding to Christ,” and the deceased were seen as “heroes of the faith.”

The autopsy results cited by the judge showed that hunger was not the only cause of death. Some victims died from suffocation, neck compression, or head injuries.

Authorities began exhuming bodies from the Shakahola Forest in April 2023, following reports of the deaths of people who were following McKenzie's teachings. So far, 429 bodies have been recovered. The 191 murder convictions relate to the victims of the case that was sentenced last month, while other charges may be brought at a later date.

Rodgers Chibutsi, a Nairobi resident who identified his mother's remains among the bodies exhumed in February 2024, told CNN following the ruling on Friday: "I can't say I'm completely satisfied. The sentence is not enough to compensate for my mother's life, but we have no other choice. At least, (McKenzie) will not be able to serve the 200-year prison term, and he will eventually die."