Kenyan Pastor Convicted of Murdering 191 People in Doomsday Cult Who Believed in 'Spiritual Reward'

The Kenyan pastor, Paul Mackenzie, who led a doomsday cult in Kenya and was convicted of murdering 190 children and one adult on 19 October, instructed followers to starve themselves and their children to get closer to God.

Judge Diana Kavedza delivered the ruling against Mackenzie after an eight-hour judgment at the Mombasa High Court, where he heard that followers were urged to starve themselves and their children to death in pursuit of spiritual reward.

Twenty-eight other leaders of his Good News International Church were also convicted of murder, according to the supplied report.

Kenyan Pastor Convicted After Shakahola Deaths

The convictions follow the discovery of more than 400 bodies in shallow graves in Shakahola forest near Malindi, exhumed from April 2023.

The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights placed the death toll linked to the cult at 429 in 2024, while nearly half of the recovered bodies were children and many could not be identified because of severe decomposition.

The report describes an order in which children were expected to die first, followed by women and then men.

Judge Kavedza stated that followers treated the deaths of children as spiritual achievements. 'Starvation became the way to heaven as parents watched their children die as a profit of spiritual reward,' she stated.

Kenyan Pastor's Teachings and Reported Enforcement

The report said the deaths were not attributed to starvation alone. It identified strangulation, suffocation and asphyxia among other causes, and reported that armed militia enforced the fasting, with people who resisted or attempted to escape allegedly beaten or strangled.

A co-accused told the court that Mackenzie had stated that those who refused should be forced to heaven 'through kicks and blows.' Followers also celebrated those who died as having 'wedded with Jesus.'

The report said Mackenzie banned education and modern medicine, calling both evil, and isolated followers from mainstream society. In a March 2023 video, he claimed he was guided by 'the voice of Christ' and said the world would end that year.

Kenyan Pastor Had Faced Earlier Police Action

Mackenzie founded Good News International Church in 2003. Documents list his birth year as 1973, though some official records list it as 1976. He registered a television company in 2012 and built a YouTube following with sermons about exorcisms and demonic spirits.

Police had investigated Mackenzie in 2017 after finding dozens of children at his Malindi compound without schooling. He faced charges of operating an unregistered school and radicalisation. After the church closed in 2019, he moved the community to the remote Shakahola forest.

The commission later stated that the earlier arrest should have prompted deeper inquiries. 'This points to a failure in the investigation and prosecution processes,' it stated. President William Ruto also acknowledged the government's failure to prevent the deaths.

Kenyan Pastor Still Has Supporters Among Survivors

Some relatives welcomed the convictions. Stephen Mwiti, who lost his wife and six children, told a publication, 'I'm a happy man, that all persons have been convicted.'

Dan Mackenzie, the pastor's eldest son, stated that his younger siblings were still being forcibly starved two weeks before he spoke to the publication. He reported the situation to police, who rescued eight children.

Others continue to defend Mackenzie. Peter Shukrani, who moved to Shakahola at age eight, stated that he 'would have died' without rescue because his mother refused him medicine. 'I still love him, and he is still my pastor,' Shukrani stated.

Mackenzie is due to be sentenced on 6 November and faces additional charges linked to 52 more deaths at a second site.