Kenyan Doomsday Cult Leader Found Guilty of 191 Murders After Forcing Followers To 'Fast to Death'

A court in Mombasa has convicted Kenyan doomsday cult leader Paul Mackenzie of 191 murders after he ordered followers to starve their children to 'meet Jesus', with sentencing due on 6 November.

The case followed his arrest in April 2023, with more than 400 bodies subsequently recovered from shallow graves in Shakahola forest near Kenya's coast, where his followers had settled. All but one of the victims covered by the murder verdict were children.

Twenty-eight other cult leaders were also convicted of murder. All had pleaded not guilty and repeatedly insisted that nobody had been forced to die.

Kenyan Doomsday Cult Orders Detailed in Court

Justice Diana Mochache delivered an eight-hour judgement, describing followers who believed Mackenzie was 'Jesus's mouthpiece'. Burials in the forest were called 'weddings', and those who died 'were celebrated as having wedded with Jesus', she stated.

One co-accused described Mackenzie instructing followers that anyone who 'resisted the directive to fast must be forced to go to heaven through kicks and blows'.

A witness recounted how a woman had been barred from nursing her newborn, who died 12 days later. 'She was instructed to fast to death and follow her children,' the witness stated.

Mackenzie's former security chief, Enos Amanya Ngala, had initially been accused before entering a plea deal and becoming a prosecution witness.

The proceedings marked the first murder verdict against Mackenzie, who also faces separate cases involving terrorism, radicalisation and denying children education.

A Father's Loss to the Kenyan Doomsday Cult

Stephen Mwiti, 48, lost all six of his children. His former wife was among those convicted alongside Mackenzie.

'I'm a happy man, that all persons have been convicted,' he told the BBC outside court. Before the verdict, he had described recovering and burying only the remains of his son Samuel. Seventeen men from a nearby town were hired to dig up the shallow graves. Some received $8 (£6) a day.

James, one of the gravediggers, described discovering the bodies of 12 children arranged together in a single grave. Gravediggers also described children's hands and legs tied, their bodies wrapped in bedsheets.

The forest community had contact with nearby Shakahola town, where followers sought supplies and fetched water from the River Galana. Gravedigger Salim Karisa recalled transporting people into the forest on motorbikes without knowing what was happening there.

How the Kenyan Doomsday Cult Reached Shakahola

Mackenzie established Good News International Ministries in 2003. Its following grew to thousands across Kenya, while its television station, Times TV, broadcast sermons from his church in Malindi.

His teachings prohibited education and rejected healthcare. After the main church closed in 2019, Mackenzie relocated to Shakahola and encouraged followers to join him.

Peter Shukrani, 23, moved there with his mother. He described becoming severely ill while she discarded his medication because she believed Mackenzie's teaching that medicine was evil. Rescuers eventually brought him out of the forest.

Despite his experience, Shukrani defended Mackenzie before the verdict, insisting that followers chose to fast. Mackenzie's son Dan, a church cameraperson, took the opposite view and believed his father should be convicted because followers had looked to him for leadership.

Many bodies remain unidentified because of advanced decomposition. Court documents identify several victims as 'unknown male child', recording the location of their grave and the date of discovery.