Kenyan court sentencing doomsday cult leader Paul Mackenzie

What the report says

A Kenyan court is sentencing Paul Mackenzie, the leader of a doomsday cult, after he was convicted last month of murdering 191 people, nearly all of them children. BBC Africa reported that Mackenzie and 27 co-accused were found guilty over deaths linked to instructions that followers starve their children so they could “meet Jesus.”

Mackenzie was arrested in 2023 after authorities discovered more than 400 bodies in shallow graves in Shakahola forest near Kenya’s coast. The case drew major public shock in Kenya and international attention. In the sentencing hearing in Mombasa, prosecutors sought the death penalty for Mackenzie, citing the seriousness of the crimes and what they described as his lack of remorse. They asked for life sentences for his co-defendants.

According to the court findings reported by BBC Africa, the deaths were part of an organized pattern of religious coercion, with followers told to fast and punished if they resisted. The judge said the cult’s burials were treated as “weddings” and that those who died were portrayed as having gone to Jesus. Post-mortems showed starvation as the main cause of death, while some victims died from suffocation, strangulation or head injuries.

The case has raised wider concerns in Kenya about oversight of extremist religious groups and the response of local officials. The convictions cover 191 victims, while more than 400 bodies were exhumed from the forest, and Mackenzie still faces other cases including allegations tied to terrorism and radicalisation.