Kenyan cult leader Paul Mackenzie sentenced to 200 years in prison for murder of 190 children

A Kenyan court has sentenced cult leader Paul Mackenzie to 200 years in prison for the murder of 190 children and one adult, who were starved to death on his orders and buried in a forest.

The High Court in Kenya's coastal city of Mombasa issued the sentence for Pastor Paul Mackenzie. He was convicted of murdering 190 children and one adult after he ordered his followers to starve themselves to death in order to meet Jesus.

Justice Diana Kavedza said that Mackenzie, leader of the Good News International Church, bore the "primary criminal culpability" for relocating his followers to a remote location and ordering them to fast to death.

Mackenzie was charged with the murders alongside 28 of his followers, including guards who enforced his fasting directives and gravediggers who helped conceal the mass graves. All denied the charges, except for one person who confessed and pleaded for leniency.

On Oct. 19, the court found all 29 of the accused guilty of the murder of 191 people.

In 2023, more than 400 bodies were exhumed from shallow graves on the 800-acre Chakama Ranch in coastal Kilifi County, where Mackenzie's followers lived in mud huts, away from the scrutiny of local communities and authorities.

More than 60 bodies were positively identified and reburied by their relatives, while many others remain unidentified and unclaimed.

During the sentencing, Kavedza said that 183 victims died of starvation, defined as a complete lack of food, and the other eight were classified as murder by direct homicide.

Kavedza said the killings were "cold and calculated" and dismissed claims by some of the accused that the loss of their own children altered the fact that they had participated in the killings of many other children.

The justice said that the perpetrators didn't show remorse and declared they were ready to fast to death as well. During the sentencing, Mackenzie often smiled and chatted with his assistant pastor, Smart Mwakalama, who was sentenced to 160 years in prison.

The prosecution had argued for the death penalty for Mackenzie and life imprisonment for his accomplices.

Mackenzie is also facing terrorism, child abuse and torture charges in two other courts.
 

Francis Wanje, a 62-year-old teacher who lost two grandchildren, told AFP he had hoped Mackenzie would be sentenced to death to prevent further tragedies.

"Nothing can ease the pain," said Wanje, who blamed authorities for failing to act swiftly. "I really have great (anger) towards the authorities. If they had taken action, we would not be here today."

Mackenzie was arrested in April 2023, after a rights group tipped off authorities and some followers were rescued.

The subsequent police operation exposed hundreds of shallow graves, with a soaring death toll that required a pause in excavations as local morgues ran out of space.

The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights said in 2024 that the death toll was 429. Some victims are still unidentified.

Mackenzie established the Good News International Church in 2003, and set up branches in Nairobi and along Kenya's coast that attracted thousands of devotees, though he claimed it closed in 2019.

Followers have told their families and officials they believed Mackenzie when he preached that starvation was the path to salvation.