Leader of Kenyan doomsday cult sentenced to 200 years in prison

MOMBASA, Kenya (AP) — The leader of a Kenyan doomsday cult linked to the deaths of more than 400 people was sentenced on Friday to 200 years in prison for the murders of 191 people.

The High Court in Kenya’s coastal city of Mombasa issued the sentence for Pastor Paul Mackenzie. He was convicted of murdering 190 children and one adult after he ordered his followers to starve themselves to death in order to meet Jesus.

Justice Diana Kavedza said that Mackenzie, leader of the Good News International Church, bore the “primary criminal culpability” for relocating his followers to a remote location and ordering them to fast to death.

Mackenzie was charged with the murders alongside 28 of his followers, including guards who enforced his fasting directives and gravediggers who helped conceal the mass graves. All denied the charges, except for one person who confessed and pleaded for leniency.

On Oct. 19, the court found all 29 of the accused guilty of the murder of 191 people.

In 2023, more than 400 bodies were exhumed from shallow graves on the 800-acre (320-hectare) Chakama Ranch in coastal Kilifi County, where Mackenzie’s followers lived in mud huts, away from the scrutiny of local communities and authorities.

More than 60 bodies were positively identified and reburied by their relatives, while many others remain unidentified and unclaimed.

During the sentencing, Kavedza said that 183 victims died of starvation, defined as a complete lack of food, and the other eight were classified as murder by direct homicide.

Kavedza said the killings were “cold and calculated” and dismissed claims by some of the accused that the loss of their own children altered the fact that they had participated in the killings of many other children.

The justice said that the perpetrators didn’t show remorse and declared they were ready to fast to death as well. During the sentencing, Mackenzie often smiled and chatted with his assistant pastor, Smart Mwakalama, who was sentenced to 160 years in prison.

The prosecution had argued for the death penalty for Mackenzie and life imprisonment for his accomplices.

Mackenzie is also facing terrorism, child abuse and torture charges in two other courts.

Evelyne Musambi, The Associated Press