MOMBASA, Kenya — A High Court in Mombasa sentenced Pastor Paul Mackenzie, leader of a doomsday cult linked to more than 400 deaths, to 200 years in prison on Friday, Nov. 6, for the murders of 191 people, the Associated Press reported via Religion News Service. He was convicted of murdering 190 children and one adult after ordering followers to starve themselves to death in order to meet Jesus.
What the court found
Justice Diana Kavedza said Mackenzie, leader of the Good News International Church, bore “primary criminal culpability” for moving followers to a remote site and ordering them to fast to death, the AP reported. She said 183 victims died of starvation and eight were killed by direct homicide.
Mackenzie was charged alongside 28 followers, including guards who enforced the fasting and gravediggers who helped hide mass graves. The court found all 29 guilty on Oct. 19, the AP said.
The graves
In 2023, more than 400 bodies were exhumed from shallow graves on the 800-acre Chakama Ranch in Kilifi County, where followers lived in mud huts, according to the AP. More than 60 bodies were identified and reburied by relatives; many others remain unidentified.
What happens next
Mackenzie still faces terrorism and manslaughter charges over more than 200 other victims, plus child abuse and torture charges in two other courts, the AP reported. He is presumed innocent on those pending charges.
More coverage is in our World News section.
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