A Kenyan judge has started to deliver a verdict in a mass murder case involving doomsday preacher Paul Mackenzie.
Mackenzie and 29 of his followers are being charged with the murder of 191 people, all but one of them children.
His cult is alleged to have forced children to starve to death so that they could “meet Jesus”. His doomsday doctrine said that education was forbidden and modern medicine was considered “evil”.
Mackenzie and the 29 others have all pleaded not guilty to murder, repeatedly insisting that nobody was forced to die.
Mackenzie’s former head of security, Enos Amanya Ngala, was initially accused but then entered a plea deal and became a witness for the prosecution.
Mackenzie and other leaders of the cult also face a raft of other legal cases, including for terrorism, radicalisation and denying education to children.
But this is the first time the pastor will face a verdict on the most serious charges of murder.
Authorities said over 400 bodies were found in shallow graves in Shakahola forest near the Kenyan coast, where Mackenzie led his followers from across the country.
Seventeen men were hired from the nearby town for the horrifying task of digging up the shallow graves. Some were paid just $8 (£6) a day.
“Every grave we found had at least three bodies,” James, one of the gravediggers, told the BBC. “Some of the remains were of children as young as a few weeks old.”
“We once found 12 bodies of children in a line inside a grave. It was massive, the bodies were arranged like clothes. One on top of another.”
Gravediggers described some of the bodies of children as having had their “hands and legs tied and bodies wrapped in bedsheets”.
Salim KarisaAlthough many of Mackenzie’s followers were from elsewhere in Kenya, some of the remains are of people who were familiar to the community because the people in the cult would often go to nearby Shakahola town for supplies and to fetch water from the River Galana which flows through the town.
“We would sometimes carry people on our motorbikes into the forest,” said Salim Karisa, another gravedigger. “But it was so planned and secretive that nobody could tell what was happening inside.”
Stephen Mwiti, 48, recounted losing all six of his children to the cult and seeing “many bald women and tens of children” surrounding Mackenzie in his house when he went to confront him. Mackenzie forbade make-up and hairstyles, so told women to shave off their hair or keep it unkempt.
Mwiti’s former wife is one of those accused alongside Mackenzie.
“If I met Pastor Mackenzie today, one of us will have to die,” told the BBC.
Mohamed Madi / BBC
“All six of my children died in Shakahola forest,” Mwiti said, visibly emotional holding a photograph of his family. “I only found and buried the remains of my son Samuel.”
“This little thing here was the start of all my misery,” Mwiti said as he pointed at a dusty TV and cable box in his home in the coastal town of Malindi, 70km (43 miles) from Shakahola. It was from that TV that Mackenzie’s doctrine made it to his home.
The pastor established Good News International Ministries in 2003. Over the next 16 years, the church grew in popularity to draw thousands of followers in the church’s branches across Kenya.
His church ran a television station called Times TV which would broadcast his sermons from his church in Malindi.
His End Days sermons included conspiracy theories that described education as “evil”, healthcare as “against the doctrine” and digital identity cards as “the mark of the devil”.
Mackenzie’s son, Dan Paul Mackenzie, said he worked as a cameraperson in the church. “The children would sit at the back, adults in the middle, and everyone would sing worship songs all morning.”
The pastor would start his fiery sermons at noon, some of which included “casting out demons”.
The main church shut down in 2019 and Paul Mackenzie moved to Shakahola forest, encouraging his devotees to follow him.
Peter Shukrani, 23, says his mother relocated to Shakahola with him at the time. He started going to Mackenzie’s church when he was eight years old and described him as his “spiritual father”, adding that he would “never say a bad word about him”.
When in the forest, Shukrani fell ill and his condition deteriorated because medication was banned.
“My mother would throw away all the medicine I was supposed to take because she believe that only God could heal me,” Shukrani said.
The community was described as mud houses scattered across the vast forest. “We lived a quiet normal life, fasting for a few days then having a small meal,” Shukrani said.
By March 2023 when the first remains were discovered by local herders, hundreds of people had died. “We would carry someone out of the forest but they were so frail that they would die in our arms,” explained Salim Karisa, one of the gravediggers.
Shukrani was one of the men rescued from the forest in March 2023.
He was ill and bed-ridden for weeks until that point, but his condition worsened because his mother would throw away all the medication he needed to recover.
“My mother believed Pastor Mackenzie’s doctrine that medicine was evil,” Shukrani said.
“I would have died if I wasn’t rescued from Shakahola forest.”
In the 298 pages detailing the charges against him in the current case, 190 victims of the 191 Mackenzie and his followers are accused of murdering are children.
Many of the bodies are still unidentified, owing to their advanced state of decomposition.
In the court documents, several are referred to as “unknown male child” and identified by the location of their grave and date of their discovery.
Despite the suffering endured by Mackenzie’s followers, men, women and children who died due to starvation, strangulation and even being bludgeoned to death, as well as his own suffering, Shukrani believes Mackenzie was “a good person who cares for me”.
“Mackenzie didn’t force anyone to fast. People made those choices by themselves because of their beliefs,” Shukrani said.
“I still love him and he is still my pastor.”
In contrast Dan Mackenzie believed his father should be found guilty of murder.
“He was the leader, he was someone who they were looking [up to]. So he is a murderer of mass killing.”
