Kenyan cult leader jailed 200 years for k!lling 191 people
Kenyan cult leader jailed 200 years for killing 191 people
A Kenyan court has sentenced a doomsday cult leader, Paul Mackenzie, to 200 years in prison for murdering 191 people, including 190 children, after ordering his followers to starve to death in the belief that they would meet Jesus, BBC reports.
Mackenzie was convicted in October alongside 28 co-defendants over the killings linked to his religious group in Shakahola forest, near Kenya’s coast.
Delivering the sentence on Friday, Justice Diana Mochache said Mackenzie bore the “primary criminal culpability” for directing followers to undertake deadly fasts.
The court handed him 100 years for homicide and another 100 years for offences relating to starvation.
The sentences in each category will run concurrently, but the two categories will run consecutively, bringing his total prison term to 200 years.
According to the BBC, the judge described the killings as “cold and calculated” and said the sentence was intended to send an unmistakable message that such atrocities deserved the maximum penalties permitted by law.
Mackenzie’s 28 co-defendants, including guards who enforced the fasting orders and gravediggers who helped conceal victims’ bodies, received prison terms of up to 160 years.
Prosecutors had sought the death penalty, but the judge declined to impose it, saying capital punishment would eliminate the possibility of rehabilitation.
Mackenzie was arrested in 2023 after authorities discovered hundreds of bodies buried in shallow graves in Shakahola forest. More than 400 bodies have since been exhumed from the area.
Investigations found that many of the victims died from starvation, while others suffered suffocation, strangulation or head injuries.
Mackenzie founded Good News International Ministries in 2003 and became known for sermons in which he described education and healthcare as evil. He later moved to Shakahola forest and encouraged his followers to join him.
He and his co-defendants had denied the allegations, insisting that nobody was forced to die.
The cult leader also faces separate manslaughter and terrorism charges, which he denies.
