Cult leader accused of killing 190 children is sentenced to 200 years in prison in Kenya

A Kenyan court sentenced this Friday (6) Paul Mackenzie, leader of a sect, to 200 years in prison for the murder of 190 children who starved to death on his orders and were buried in a forest. They are among 500 alleged victims of one of the deadliest sect-linked massacres in recent times.

The sentence was made up of one hundred years for murder through deprivation of food and another one hundred years for direct murder, said judge Diana Kavedza when reading the sentence.

According to the prosecution, Mackenzie, who led an apocalyptic Christian church in a forest near the Indian Ocean coast in eastern Kenya, had instructed his followers to starve themselves, along with their children, to reach heaven before the end of the world.

His accomplices threatened and beat the victims to ensure they obeyed orders. The emaciated bodies were found scattered in shallow graves.

Wearing a gray polo shirt and black pants, Mackenzie showed no reaction as the judge read the sentence in a tent set up outside the courtroom where the hearing took place. He had denied the murder charges, saying he did not force the victims to starve. The court rejected the defense's arguments.

Twenty-eight accomplices received sentences ranging from 10 to 160 years. All were found guilty in a trial held last month. Defense lawyer Lawrence Obonyo, who represents Mackenzie and almost all the other convicts, said he will appeal the decision.

Mackenzie, who broadcast sermons on a YouTube channel with thousands of subscribers, gained the trust of victims through his charismatic media presence and then began preying on defenseless and vulnerable followers, especially children, Kavedza said.

"Children watched their brothers die after enduring days of hunger," she said. "Those who stole food or water were beaten, their hands were tied and they were locked in houses that were converted into places of fasting so that they could die."

The case shocked Kenya in April 2023 when police began finding bodies in Shakahola forest, near the coastal town of Malindi.

Although the trial only covered the cases of 190 children and 1 adult victim, Kenya's National Human Rights Commission says that in total, 448 bodies were found in the forest.

Mackenzie is also accused of ordering the deaths of 52 people found elsewhere, in a village 30 km away, bringing the estimated total number of victims to 500. He pleaded not guilty in that case.

The scale of the killing is comparable to that of an apocalyptic sect that killed more than 700 people in Uganda in 2000, and the Jonestown massacre in Guyana in 1978, when an American sect leader killed more than 900 people by ordering them to drink poison.

Stephen Mwiti, 48, father of six children killed by Mackenzie and husband of one of her convicted accomplices, said his wife had taken the children to Shakahola, where they starved to death.

Even if the adults had agreed to fast, "what about the children?" Mwiti asked Reuters before the sentencing.

Suleiman Dziro, whose wife and six children remain missing, cried outside the court after the sentencing.

"I'm happy, but where is my family?" he said. "The only thing I ask the government is to help find my family. If they are dead, give me the bodies so I can bury them."

Dan Mackenzie, one of Paul Mackenzie's sons, said he ran away from the group in his early teens, after no longer believing in the promises of reaching heaven, and that he lost friends and his younger brother there.

"It's justice for the people we lost there in Shakahola," he said.

Mackenzie had been on authorities' radar since 2017, when police searched his premises. In 2019, authorities closed Mackenzie's church in Malindi, and he moved to nearby Shakahola Forest.

The findings have sparked calls for stricter oversight of religious groups, but proposals backed by the government and the Senate have not yet become law.

Ojiro Odhiambo, head of the Kenya Human Rights Commission's rapid response unit, said the conviction was an important step, but that accountability should go further, as local administrators, police, intelligence officers and religious leaders were also responsible for failing to act on repeated warning signs.

“All these people failed the population,” he said.

Kavedza agreed that Kenyan institutions had failed and called on Parliament to take action to prevent this from happening again.