A CULT leader who reportedly incited his followers to starve themselves to death has been unmasked after mass graves were uncovered.
Self-proclaimed pastor Paul Nthenge Mackenzie allegedly told his disciples at the Good News International Church to prepare to “meet Jesus” in a case that shocked the world.
Mackenzie, along with more than 90 others, will be charged with murder, manslaughter, radicalisation, cruelty and child torture, among other crimes.
It comes after 429 butchered and buried bodies were discovered in Shakahola forest, south east Kenya in April, the country’s director of public prosecutions said on Tuesday.
While most showed signs of starvation, many bodies, especially those of children, had markings consistent with strangulation and suffocation.
Titus Katana, an ex-member and deputy pastor told The Times that the children were ordered to starve themselves first.
He said: “They were shut in huts for five days without food or water. Then they wrapped them in blankets and buried them, even the ones still breathing.”
The cult leader has denied the charges, asserting he couldn’t have been cognizant of the deaths as he closed his church down five years ago.
Mackenzie is currently in jail after he was convicted of spearheading an illegal film studio for his church in November.
Kenya has a long history of self-declared pastors and cult-like movements.
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There are more than 4,000 churches registered in the East African country of 53 million people, according to government figures.
Mulele Ingonga, a Kenyan prosecution official, brought forward the charges against Mackenzie following threats by a magistrate in the coastal county of Kilifi that the court would release him within two weeks if he didn’t.
Cops started investigating the Good News International Church after investigators rescued 15 emaciated members from the parish following a tipoff from a local rights group.
Four later died, but some surviving members told investigators that Mackenzie had urged them to starve themselves to death in order to be reunited with Jesus.
The tipoff also alluded to shallow graves piled high with at least 31 of the church’s followers.
Mackenzie turned himself into a police station before the mass graves were discovered, but was later released on bail for less than £600.
A Senate commission of inquiry reported in October that Mackenzie had faced charges back in 2017 for his extreme preaching.
“(But) the criminal justice system failed to deter the heinous activities of Paul Mackenzie in Shakahola,” it said.
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Kenya’s interior secretary Kithure Kindiki described the case as “the clearest abuse of the constitutionally enshrined human right to freedom of worship.”
The horrific saga has stunned Kenyans and led President William Ruto to set up a commission of inquiry into the deaths and a task force to review regulations governing religious bodies.
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