A Kenyan court has sentenced doomsday cult leader Paul Mackenzie to 200 years in prison for the murder of 191 people, all but one of them children, in the Shakahola forest massacre.
Mackenzie, who led the Good News International Ministries church, was convicted on 19 October along with his co-accused, after a court found he had ordered his followers to starve themselves and their children to death so they could ‘meet Jesus’. The court handed him two consecutive 100-year terms, bringing his total sentence to 200 years.
Prosecutors had asked for the death penalty, but the court declined to impose it. Kenya has not carried out an execution since 1987.
Mackenzie was arrested in 2023 after more than 400 bodies were found in shallow graves in Shakahola forest, near the coastal town of Malindi. The 191 murder convictions cover only part of the deaths uncovered in the forest, and Mackenzie still faces separate cases, including over terrorism and radicalisation charges.
The court said Mackenzie bore the ‘primary criminal culpability’ for ordering his followers to fast to death, calling the sentence ‘appropriate and just, to send an unmistakable message that such atrocities warrant the maximum penalties allowed by law.’
Mackenzie’s lawyer said he would appeal the conviction.
Source: BBC News — https://nilepost.co.ug/news/385023/kenyan-doomsday-cult-leader-given-life-sentence-for-murdering-191-people
