Kenya cult leader charged with terrorism over starvation deaths

RELIGIONS NEWS AGENCY (REDNA) – A Kenyan court has charged cult leader Paul Mackenzie with “terrorism”-related crimes over the deaths of 429 of his followers.

Aljazeera reported the self-proclaimed pastor was charged along with 94 others on Thursday over the deaths of followers whose bodies have been exhumed from the Shakahola forest near the Indian Ocean.

Mackenzie was arrested last April after the bodies began being discovered.

The charges, announced during an appearance before a court in the southeastern city of Mombasa, are the first to be brought against him.

Mackenzie and his co-defendants denied the charges during their appearance before the judge, Joe Omido. They are due back in court on February 8 for a bond hearing.

Authorities allege that Mackenzie, the head of the Good News International Church, incited his acolytes in southeastern Kenya to starve themselves and their children to death so they could go to heaven before the world ended.

The bodies of the victims were uncovered over months of exhumations across tens of thousands of acres of forest.

Autopsies revealed that the majority had died of hunger. But others, including children, appeared to have been strangled, beaten or suffocated.