After shocking body discovery: sect leader in Kenya charged with 191 murders

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A court in Kenya has charged the head of a fasting sect and several other suspects with 191 murders. Self-styled pastor Paul Nthenge Mackenzie and 29 other defendants pleaded not guilty on Tuesday, according to court documents seen by AFP. The case is hard to beat in terms of brutality.

Mackenzie has already been charged with terrorism, manslaughter and child torture and abuse. Another suspect was deemed unfit to stand trial and had to return to court in the coastal town of Malindi within a month.

Starved, strangled, beaten

Mackenzie was arrested in April 2023 after hundreds of bodies were discovered in the Shakahola Forest. Autopsies showed that the majority of the 429 victims had died of starvation. Others, including children, appeared to have been strangled, beaten or suffocated. The case became known as the ‘Shakahola Forest Massacre’ and prompted the government to promulgate stricter sectarian laws.

There are more than 4,000 registered churches in Kenya, as well as self-styled priests and so-called religious communities founded by criminals.

Court documents describe the International Priesthoods of Good News founded by Mackenzie as an “organized criminal organization.”

The case raised the question of how Mackenzie was able to avoid prosecution for so long. A Senate committee ruled in October that the father of seven had already been charged in 2017 for his extreme teachings, but had not been convicted. Mackenzie was not stopped by an investigation launched in 2019 into the deaths of two children who were apparently starved and then suffocated. He was released on bail pending the start of a trial.

Source: Blick