A Kenyan court on Friday sentenced cult leader Paul Mackenzie to 200 years in prison for the murder of 190 children starved to death on his orders and buried in a forest, among 500 alleged victims of one of the worst ceremonial massacres of modern times. The sentence was 100 years for murder by starvation and 100 years for direct murder, Judge Diana Kavedza said when reading the sentence. An apocalyptic Christian church in a forest near Kenya’s eastern Indian Ocean coast had told its followers to starve themselves, along with their children, to reach heaven before the end of the world. His accomplices threatened and beat the victims to ensure that they followed their orders. The emaciated bodies were found scattered in shallow graves and dumped in latrines. Some had been buried alive. Mackenzie, dressed in a gray polo shirt and black pants, did not react as the judge read his sentence in a tent set up outside the courthouse where the hearing was held. He had denied the murder charges, saying he did not force the victims to starve. The court rejected his defense. Twenty-eight accomplices received sentences ranging from 10 to 160 years. All were found guilty at a trial last month. Defense lawyer Lawrence Obonyo, who represents Mackenzie and almost all the other convicts, said he would appeal the ruling. Kavedza said Mackenzie had gained the trust of his victims through his charismatic media presence and then attacked helpless and vulnerable followers. Those who tried to break the fast were beaten and tied up, he said. “Children watched as their brothers fell dead after enduring hunger for days,” he said. “Those who stole food or water were beaten, their hands tied and locked in houses, turned into places of fasting to die.” Father lost 6 children. The case shocked Kenya in April 2023, when police began discovering bodies in the Shakahola forest, near the coastal town of Malindi. Although the trial only covered the cases of 190 children and one adult victim, Kenya’s National Human Rights Commission says 448 bodies were ultimately found in the forest. Mackenzie is also accused of ordering the deaths of 52 people found at a separate location in a village 30 kilometers away, bringing the suspected total to 500. He has pleaded not guilty in that case. The scale of the killing is comparable to that of an apocalyptic cult that killed more than 700 people in Uganda in 2000, and to the 1978 Jonestown massacre in Guyana, when an American cult leader killed more than 900 people by ordering them to drink. Poison. Kenyan cult leader Paul Mackenzie, center in black pants, smiled as he entered a tent set up outside the Mombasa High Court before his hearing. (Monicah Mwangi/Reuters) Stephen Mwiti, 48, father of six of Mackenzie’s child victims and husband of one of his convicted accomplices, said his wife had taken the children to Shakahola, where they were starved. Even if the adults had agreed to fast, “what about the children?” Mwiti told Reuters before the sentencing: “I lost children and I will not be able to get them back no matter what happens to Mackenzie and his accomplices,” Mwiti said. “I hope he is sentenced to death or imprisoned for life so that he never goes out to cause more deaths.” Dan Mackenzie, one of Paul’s sons, said his father did not forgive his own family. “I didn’t end up in Shakahola because I no longer believed in… going to heaven. So I left the church and started doing my own thing,” he told Reuters. “I also lost friends and my little brother. It’s justice for the people we lost there in Shakahola.” They ask for more responsibility Mackenzie had been on the radar of the authorities since 2017, when the police searched its facilities. In 2019, authorities closed Mackenzie’s church in Malindi and he moved to nearby Shakahola Forest. The discoveries prompted calls for stricter oversight of religious groups. Kenyan President William Ruto appointed a task force in May 2023 to review the legal and regulatory framework, and separate proposals backed by the government and the Senate were published in 2024, although they have not yet become law. Ojiro Odhiambo, head of rapid response at the Kenya Human Rights Commission, said the conviction was an important step but accountability should go further, with local administrators, police, intelligence officers and religious leaders taking responsibility for failing to act on repeated warning signs. “Kavedza agreed that Kenyan institutions had failed and called on Parliament to take action to prevent this from happening again. In 2023, Ruto said he took responsibility as president for the government’s failure to prevent the deaths.
