A Kenyan court on Friday sentenced cult leader Paul Mackenzie to 200 years in prison for the murders of 190 children who were starved to death on his orders and buried in a forest, Reuters reported.
Justice Diana Kavedza, reading out the judgment, said the sentence was made up of 100 years for murder by starvation and 100 years for direct homicide.
Prosecutors said Mackenzie led an apocalyptic Christian church in a forest near Kenya’s Indian Ocean coast and told his followers to starve themselves, and their children, to reach heaven before the end of the world. His accomplices threatened and beat victims who did not follow his orders, prosecutors said.
Mackenzie had denied the murder charges, saying he did not force the victims to starve. The court rejected his defence.
A Father Who Lost Six Children
The trial covered the deaths of 190 children and one adult. The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights says 448 bodies were ultimately found in Shakahola Forest, near the coastal town of Malindi, after police began uncovering bodies there in April 2023.
Mackenzie is also accused of ordering the deaths of 52 people found at a separate location in a village 30 km (18 miles) away, which would bring the suspected total toll to 500. He has pleaded not guilty in that case.
Stephen Mwiti, 48, lost six children in Shakahola. His wife, one of Mackenzie’s convicted accomplices, had taken the children there, where they were starved to death.
“I lost children and I will not be able to get them back no matter what happens to Mackenzie and his accomplices,”
Speaking to Reuters ahead of the sentencing, Mwiti said he expected Mackenzie to be sentenced to death or jailed for life.
Dan Mackenzie, one of Paul Mackenzie’s sons, said his father did not spare his own family. He told Reuters he had left the church after he stopped believing, and had lost friends and a younger brother at Shakahola.
Calls for Wider Accountability
Mackenzie had been known to the authorities since 2017, when police searched his premises. Authorities shut down his church in Malindi in 2019, and he moved to the nearby Shakahola Forest.
The discoveries brought calls for tighter oversight of religious groups. President William Ruto appointed a task force in May 2023 to review the legal and regulatory framework, and separate government-backed and Senate proposals followed in 2024, though they have yet to become law. In 2023, Ruto said he took responsibility as president for the government having failed to prevent the deaths.
Ojiro Odhiambo, head of rapid response at the Kenya Human Rights Commission, said the conviction was an important step. But he said accountability should go further, because local administrators, police, intelligence officers and religious leaders had failed to act on repeated warning signs.
“All these people have failed the people,” he said.
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