The High Court has ruled that controversial preacher Paul\u00a0 Mackenzie and 29 others were properly charged with 191 counts of murder people in the Shakahola massacre.<\/p>\n
The ruling followed a preliminary objection filed by the defense counsel challenging the number of counts in the charge.<\/p>\n
Judge Mugure Thande ruled that the charge facing Mackenzie and his co-accused was properly drafted and the suspects were charged in accordance with the law.<\/p>\n
Thande stated that the charge as drawn will not occasion any prejudice to Mackenzie and his co-accused persons.<\/p>\n
However, Thande directed the prosecution to reduce the number of murder charges from the current 191 to only 12.<\/p>\n
She noted that decreasing the number of charges will facilitate the quick delivery of justice to all parties while also saving valuable judicial time.<\/p>\n
She directed the DPP to amend the information containing the murder counts within 21 days and file fresh charges against them.<\/p>\n
The court is also expected to hear an application by the prosecution to oppose the release of Mackenzie and his co-accused on bond.<\/p>\n
Thande further directed parties to highlight submissions on the prosecution\u2019s application to oppose bond on 18 July 2024.<\/p>\n
The entire 30 accused persons jointly pleaded not guilty to 191 counts of murder, contrary to Section 203 as read with 204 of the penal code.<\/p>\n
They allegedly committed the offenses on an unknown date between January 2021 and September 2023 in the Shakahola area of Malindi Sub County within Kilifi County.<\/p>\n
The post Court rules Mackenzie, 29 others were properly charged in Shakahola cult case<\/a> first appeared on KBC<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The High Court has ruled that controversial preacher Paul\u00a0 Mackenzie and 29 others were properly charged with 191 counts of murder people in the Shakahola massacre. The ruling followed a preliminary objection filed by the defense counsel challenging the number of counts in the charge. Judge Mugure Thande ruled that the charge facing Mackenzie and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41148\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}