Good News International Church leader Paul Ntenge McKenzie and 94 of his associates were charged in a Kenyan court on Thursday with terrorism-related charges over the starvation deaths of 429 members.
Mackenzie was accused of ordering his followers to starve to death so they could enter heaven before the world was destroyed. Mackenzie is arrested In April 2023, after a human rights organization called Haki Africa alerted police to the existence of a hunger cult.
Determined to carry out MacKenzie's starvation order, many members of Good News International Church hid in the Shakahora forest in eastern Kenya, hiding from police and military search teams. Some detained cultists had to be physically forced to eat.
On April 25, 2023, in Shakahora, on the outskirts of the coastal town of Malindi, while being escorted by Kenyan police officers as they check an abandoned home of members of the Good News International Church, who are said to be practicing mass starvation. A former church member makes a gesture. (Yasukichi) Chiba/AFP via Getty Images)
McKenzie had been arrested twice before the starvation scare was discovered, including in March 2023 when the parents of two children were murdered by suffocation and starvation on McKenzie's orders. .
McKenzie told authorities that he was no longer a church leader and only owned farmland in Shakahora, but half-starved members of the congregation, along with dozens of corpses stuffed into shallow graves, They appeared one after another.
Kenyan officials Said More than 400 bodies were eventually discovered in the forest, most of them dead from malnutrition, but some of the fanatics violently murdered children who refused to comply with the starvation plan. Mackenzie is said to have maintained a squad of 16 enforcers to ensure that his followers did not have second thoughts and break their suicide pacts.
On April 25, 2023, a rescued member of Good News International Church, believed to be practicing mass starvation, lies in the back of a pickup truck in Shakahora, on the outskirts of the coastal town of Malindi. (Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP via Getty Images)
Officials have long hinted that Mr. McKenzie could go to trial on terrorism charges, and such charges were filed on Friday. It has been submitted In Mombasa.
Court documents describe McKenzie's church as an “organized criminal group that engaged in organized criminal activity, thereby endangering the lives and resulting in the deaths of 429 members and worshipers.” This clearly provided legal basis for charging Mackenzie with terrorist activities.
Prosecutors also charged McKenzie and his associates with “organized criminal activity” and “radicalization.” All defendants have pleaded not guilty and are scheduled to reappear in court on February 8th for a bail hearing.
According to Al Jazeera, prosecutors struggle It consolidated the case against McKenzie and requested several extensions of his pretrial detention to get more time. The court ultimately warned that he would be released if he was not charged within 14 days.
On Wednesday, another Kenyan judge in the coastal town of Malindi ordered Mr McKenzie and 30 of his colleagues will undergo mental health assessments as they face possible charges of “murder, manslaughter, terrorism and torture”.
Malindi prosecutor Said Reporters say the charges will be filed within two weeks and will include 191 counts of child murder. According to a former cult member, Mackenzie should first kill the children to “die quickly” by starving them in bright sunlight so he could be sure their parents made it to heaven before they committed suicide. He is said to have preached that.
“If an adult is dead, that means the children are already starving to death,” said Hussein Khalid, executive director of Haki Africa, the group that alerted authorities to MacKenzie's cult.
