Kenyan cult leader sentenced to 200 years for ordering followers to starve

The leader of a Kenyan doomsday cult, Pastor Paul Mackenzie, was sentenced to 200 years in prison for the murders of 191 people, ABC News reported. The High Court in Mombasa convicted Mackenzie of causing the deaths of 190 children and one adult after he ordered his followers to starve themselves to death to meet Jesus.

More than 400 bodies were exhumed in 2023 from shallow graves on Chakama Ranch in Kilifi County, where the cult members lived in isolation, NPR News and ABC News reported. Over 60 victims were identified and reburied by relatives, while many remain unidentified.

Mackenzie is also facing additional charges including terrorism, manslaughter, child abuse, and torture in other courts, according to ABC News. The court found 29 people, including Mackenzie and his followers who enforced the fasting and helped conceal graves, guilty of murder.

Justice Diana Kavedza stated that Mackenzie bore the primary criminal responsibility for relocating his followers to a remote area and ordering them to fast to death. All 29 defendants denied the charges except one who confessed and sought leniency.

The victims died primarily from starvation, defined as a complete lack of food, during the cult's enforced fast, according to the court's findings reported by ABC News.