A Kenyan court has charged a cult leader and dozens of alleged accomplices with manslaughter in the deaths of more than 200 people.
Ninety-four other suspects, including self-styled pastor Paul Ntenge McKenzie and his wife, have pleaded not guilty to 238 counts of manslaughter, according to court documents seen by AFP.
McKenzie was also indicted on terrorism charges last week, accused of inciting believers to starve to death in order to “meet Jesus” in an incident that sparked fear around the world.
He was arrested in April last year after his body was found in the Shakahora forest near the Indian Ocean. Autopsies revealed that the majority of the 429 victims died of starvation. Others, including children, appear to have been strangled, beaten or suffocated.
According to court documents, the 238 victims mentioned in Tuesday's hearing were killed in Shakahora between January 2021 and September 2023.
McKenzie pleaded not guilty to terrorism at a separate hearing in the port city of Mombasa last week. He will undergo a mental health evaluation to determine whether he is fit to stand trial for murder in a separate court in the coastal town of Malindi.
Kenya, which has a Christian majority, has struggled to control unscrupulous churches and cults that engage in crime.
The gruesome incident, known as the Shakahora Forest Massacre, prompted the government to warn that it needed to tighten its control over fringe groups.
Questions have been raised about how Mr McKenzie was able to evade law enforcement despite his extremism and past legal history.
The Senate Investigative Committee reported in October that the father of seven was indicted in 2017 on charges of extremist preaching. He was acquitted of radicalization charges in 2017 for providing schooling illegally after rejecting the formal education system, claiming it was contrary to the Bible.
In 2019, he was accused in connection with the deaths of two children who were apparently starved, suffocated and buried in shallow graves at Shakahora. He was released on bail pending his trial.
More than 4,000 churches are registered in the East African country of 53 million people, according to government statistics.
