A Kenyan cult leader Paul Mackenzie, along with his 29 associates, has been charged on Tuesday for the murder of 191 children, whose bodies have been found buried in a forest.
Prosecutors claimed that Mackenzie gave orders to his followers to starve themselves and their children to death and made them believe that they will go to heaven before the world’s end.
Defendants have denied all the charges brought against them in the court of a coastal town in Malindi. One of them was also found mentally unfit to stand trial.
Notably, this is one of the most severe cult-related tragedies in recent history. The followers of Mackenzie’s Good News International Church lived in hidden settlements within an 800-acre area in the Shakahola forest. Around 400 bodies have been unburied since last April and many people were still missing while others were rescued, according to local officials.
Mackenzie was arrested in April and faced many charges from crime related to terrorism to manslaughter and torture. He was sentenced for production, distribution of films without a licence which resulted in a 12-month jail sentence.
Mackenzie, was a former taxi driver. He banned cult members from sending their children to school or look for medical care and labelled such institutions as Satanic.
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