The leader of a Kenyan cult who allegedly encouraged over 400 followers to starve themselves to death has pleaded not guilty to manslaughter, in one of the worst ever cases of cult-related mass deaths.<\/p>\n
Self-proclaimed pastor Paul Mackenzie appeared in court in the coastal city of Mombasa alongside 94 other suspects on Monday.<\/p>\n
Mr Mackenzie was arrested last April after 429 bodies, including children, were dug up from mass graves in Shakahola, a remote forest about two hours\u2019 drive west of the town of Malindi. Most of the bodies showed signs of starvation and assault.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere has never been a manslaughter case like this in Kenya,\u201d prosecutor Alexander Jami Yamina told AFP.<\/p>\n
The prosecution say over 400 witnesses will testify over the next four days.<\/p>\n
Mr Yamina said the case was unique in Kenya, and the suspects would be prosecuted under a law relating to suicide pacts.<\/p>\n
When the case broke last year Kenyans were shocked and horrified that people could willingly starve themselves to death. It became known as the \u201cShakahola Forest Massacre\u201d.<\/p>\n
Mackenzie allegedly told his followers they would get to heaven more quickly if they stopped eating.<\/p>\n
Mr Mackenzie is also facing two other trials: one for terrorism which started in July and another on child abuse charges, which includes subjecting children to torture, assault, cruelty to children and infringing a child\u2019s right to education \u2013 which he denies.<\/p>\n
Survivors say children were supposed to be the first to starve themselves, according to a macabre order drawn up by Mr Mackenzie. Then the unmarried, women, men, and last of all, church leaders.<\/p>\n
Mr Mackenzie set up his Good News International Church in 2003, but said he closed it in 2019.<\/p>\n
He encouraged his followers to move to Shakahola forest and prepare for the end of the world to \u201cmeet Jesus\u201d.<\/p>\n
Pastor Mackenzie is reported to have owned 800 acres of the remote forest, where there is no mobile network.<\/p>\n
The forest was partitioned into different areas and given biblical place names, such as Judea, Bethlehem and Nazareth.<\/p>\n
In March this year, the authorities released some victims\u2019 bodies to relatives after months of identifying them through DNA tests. So far 34 bodies have been returned.<\/p>\n
Mr Mackenzie preached that formal education was satanic and used to extort money.<\/p>\n
In 2017 and again in 2018, he was arrested for encouraging children not to go to school as he claimed education was \u201cnot recognised in the Bible\u201d.<\/p>\n
He also allegedly encouraged mothers to avoid seeking medical attention during childbirth and not to vaccinate their children.<\/p>\n
Mr Mackenzie was convicted last November of illegally operating a film studio associated with his preaching and distributing films without a valid filming licence and sentenced to a year in prison.<\/p>\n
Kenya is a profoundly religious country with 85% of the population identifying as Christian. There have been previous cases of people being lured into dangerous, unregulated churches or cults.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The leader of a Kenyan cult who allegedly encouraged over 400 followers to starve themselves to death has pleaded not guilty to manslaughter, in one of the worst ever cases of cult-related mass deaths. Self-proclaimed pastor Paul Mackenzie appeared in court in the coastal city of Mombasa alongside 94 other suspects on Monday. Mr Mackenzie […]<\/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-77760","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\/77760","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=77760"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77760\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}