Cult leader Paul Mackenzie has been convicted of murdering 190 children and one adult after persuading followers that starving themselves to death would take them to heaven.
Mackenzie led Kenya’s Good News International Church and told families that schools and hospitals were “Satanic”. He also convinced his followers that the world was approaching its end.
A Kenyan court heard that some parents stopped their children from eating and stood by as they starved to death.
The crimes came to light in 2023 after a tip-off to police exposed a large number of shallow graves near the Christian doomsday sect’s base in Kenya’s Shakahola Forest.
The case has since been described as one of the deadliest cult-related disasters in recent history.
Mackenzie, a former taxi driver, was arrested with 30 others after the graves were discovered. More than 400 bodies have been recovered, although severe decomposition meant only 26 victims could be identified.
Mackenzie denied the murder charges and insisted he had not forced anyone to starve. The court rejected his defence.
The judgment concerned 191 deaths. Investigations into the other fatalities recovered from the forest are continuing.
Paul Mackenzie (centre) has been found guilty of murdering 190 children and one adult in one of the world’s worst cult-related disasters in recent history
Mackenzie was arrested in 2023 after police received a tip-off. Weeks later, authorities began finding bodies in shallow graves across the Shakahola Forest
More than 400 bodies have been recovered from the Shakahola Forest
People familiar with the sect’s activities said Mackenzie organised the mass starvation in three stages: children first, followed by women and young men, and finally the remaining men.
Former followers have also said Mackenzie banned members from sending their children to school or seeking medical treatment when they were sick, describing both schools and hospitals as Satanic institutions.
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Members of the sect lived in makeshift shelters built from polythene sheeting and thatch. Mackenzie divided the settlement into areas with biblical names, including Jerusalem and Judea.
Justice Diana Kavedza Mochache told the court, during a hearing that lasted more than eight hours, that some children were separated from others and deprived of food while their parents watched.
Mackenzie appeared in court wearing a striped polo shirt and red trousers, seated beside his wife, who is also among the co-accused. He remained silent and stared into space before the verdict was delivered.
Relatives of some of the victims gathered at Mombasa High Court to hear the judgment.
Francis Wanje, 62, lost eight relatives, including two grandchildren, to the cult. Ahead of the verdict, he said: “It has been really a heavy thing (for) us as a family, and it has really taken us very far in terms of psychological problems… I was hoping for this particular day.”
The suffering of Mackenzie’s followers began to emerge in mid-March 2023, when a local man told police that his brother and sister-in-law had starved their children to death in the forest on the leader’s orders.
Mackenzie was initially arrested but released on bail. Relatives later said he moved forward the date on which he had predicted the world would end. Police arrested him again in April 2023, then began a systematic search of the forest and the exhumation of mass graves.
Mackenzie faces other charges over the forest deaths including terrorism-related ones, which he has denied.
Prosecutors say while he was in detention he also directed the deaths of 52 people in Kwa Binzaro village, which lies about 30 km (18 miles) from Shakahola. Mackenzie has pleaded not guilty in that case.
The Shakahola tragedy has gripped Kenya since the discovery of mass graves in the coastal forest more than three years ago.
It raised questions over how Mackenzie was able to continue to operate despite having been on the radar of the authorities since 2017 when his premises were searched by police. In 2019, authorities shut down Mackenzie’s church and he relocated to the Shakahola Forest, police said.
The case has also led to calls for tougher oversight of churches and other religious organisations in a country where religious faith plays a prominent role in public life.
Kenyan President William Ruto said in 2023 that government agencies should have been able to prevent the deaths. He said he took responsibility as president.