Kenyan hunger cult leader charged with murdering nearly 200 people

The cult leader has pleaded not guilty to all charges against him. (document)

Malindi, Kenya:

A Kenyan court on Tuesday filed murder charges against the leader of a hunger cult that killed nearly 200 people in a forest near the Indian Ocean and dozens of suspected accomplices.

Self-proclaimed pastor Paul Nthenge Mackenzie has been charged with terrorism, manslaughter and torture and child abuse after he allegedly incited hundreds of aides to starve to death “to see Jesus” .

On Tuesday, McKenzie and 29 other suspects pleaded not guilty to 191 counts of murder, according to court documents seen by AFP.

The 31st suspect was deemed mentally unfit to stand trial and was ordered to return to the Malindi High Court within a month.

The cult leader has pleaded not guilty to all charges against him.

He was arrested last April after his body was found in the Shaka Hora forest, a gruesome discovery that sent panic around the world.

Autopsies revealed that most of the 429 victims died of starvation.

But others, including children, appeared to have been strangled, beaten or suffocated.

The case, known as the Shaka Hora Forest Massacre, prompted the government to raise concerns about the need to tighten controls on fringe sects.

Kenya, a predominantly Christian country, has struggled to police immoral churches and cults involved in crime.

– ‘Organized crime syndicates’ –

Court documents describe Good News International Ministries, which McKenzie founded, as “an organized crime syndicate engaged in organized criminal activity” that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of followers.

Questions have been raised about how McKenzie managed to evade law enforcement despite a history of extremism and previous legal cases.

A Senate investigative committee reported in October that the father of seven faced charges for extreme preaching in 2017.

In 2017, he was found not guilty of radicalization charges for illegally providing school instruction by refusing to accept a formal education system that he claimed was unbiblical.

He was also charged in 2019 in connection with the deaths of two children who were believed to have been starved, suffocated and then buried in a shallow grave in Shaka Hora. He has been released on bail pending trial.

There are more than 4,000 registered churches in the East African country of 53 million people, according to government figures.

Previous efforts to regulate religious institutions in Kenya have faced fierce opposition as they sought to undermine constitutional guarantees of the separation of church and state.

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