A Kenyan court sentenced doomsday cult leader Paul Mackenzie and his followers after 191 victims died in a forest starvation scheme.
A Kenyan court in the coastal city of Mombasa sentenced doomsday cult leader Paul Mackenzie to 200 years in prison on Friday for the murder of 191 people, CBS News reported. Mackenzie, head of the Good News International Church, was convicted of murdering 190 children and one adult after ordering his followers to starve themselves to death to meet Jesus.
Sentences handed down in court
Justice Diana Kavedza said Mackenzie carried the “primary criminal culpability” for moving his followers to a remote area and commanding them to fast to death. The sentence includes 100 years for murder by starvation and 100 years for direct homicide, Al Jazeera reported. Kavedza noted that 183 victims died of starvation and eight died from direct homicide.
Mackenzie wore a grey polo shirt and black trousers, smiling and chatting with his assistant pastor, Smart Mwakalama, who received a 160-year prison sentence. Mackenzie had denied the murder charges and claimed he didn’t force anyone to starve, but the court rejected his defense. Accomplices beat and threatened victims to ensure they obeyed Mackenzie’s instructions.
The court convicted Mackenzie and 28 followers on Oct. 19. The group included guards who enforced fasting rules and gravediggers who concealed bodies in mass graves. Twenty-eight accomplices were sentenced to various prison terms on Friday. All had denied the charges except for one defendant who confessed and asked for leniency. Prosecutors had asked for the death penalty for Mackenzie and life terms for his followers. Kavedza described the killings as cold and calculated, stating that the defendants showed no remorse.
Francis Wanje, a 62-year-old teacher whose two grandchildren died in the cult, told AFP that he wanted Mackenzie sentenced to death. “Nothing can ease the pain,” Wanje said, adding that he felt great anger toward authorities for failing to intervene earlier.
The Shakahola Forest ranch
Police arrested Mackenzie in April 2023 after receiving a tip from a rights organization and rescuing several followers. Officers then began uncovering shallow graves across the 800-acre Chakama Ranch in the Shakahola Forest in Kilifi County, near Kenya’s southeastern coast. Members of the church lived on the ranch in mud huts away from outside observation.
Excavators found emaciated bodies in shallow graves and latrines, and some victims had been buried alive. Pathologists found that many victims died of starvation, while some showed signs of strangulation. Local morgues ran out of space during the search, forcing police to temporarily halt exhumations. Kenyan authorities have linked the site to more than 400 deaths, with the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights reporting 429 dead in 2024. More than 60 bodies have been identified and reburied by relatives, though many others remain unidentified.
The deaths in Kenya rank among the world’s deadliest cult massacres. The toll is comparable to the 1978 Jonestown deaths in Guyana, where an American cult leader ordered more than 900 people to drink poison, and a doomsday cult in Uganda that killed more than 700 people in 2000.
Prior arrests and church history
Before founding his ministry, Mackenzie worked as a taxi driver in the early 2000s. He established the Good News International Church in 2003, opening branches in Nairobi and along the Kenyan coast. He built a following through sermons in Malindi and reached people across the country through an online presence. While Mackenzie claimed he closed the church in 2019, he continued directing devotees.
Followers said Mackenzie preached that starvation was the route to salvation. He divided church members into smaller groups with biblical names, and investigators believe those groups died and were buried together. Surviving members said they trusted Mackenzie because his predictions appeared to come true, such as a warning about a major virus before COVID-19 struck Kenya. During the pandemic, he urged followers to abandon life’s difficulties.
Mackenzie had repeated encounters with law enforcement before the ranch graves were found. Police arrested him on radicalization charges in 2017, but he was acquitted. Officers arrested him again in 2019 regarding the deaths of two children in Shakahola, but he was released on bail. The discovery of the graves prompted nationwide calls for stricter government oversight of religious groups.
Additional trials ahead
Mackenzie remains in custody while facing other legal proceedings. He also faces charges of terrorism, torture and child abuse across two separate courts.
