Kenya cult leader Paul Mackenzie sentenced to 200 years for 191 murders
A Kenyan court in Mombasa sentenced Paul Mackenzie on 6 November to 200 years in prison for murdering 191 people, nearly all of them children, in the Shakahola starvation case, BBC and AP reported.
The High Court in Mombasa sentenced Pastor Paul Mackenzie on 6 November to 200 years in prison for the murders of 191 people — 190 of them children — after he ordered followers of his doomsday sect to starve so they could “meet Jesus”, BBC and AP reported.
Justice Diana Mochache (also reported as Diana Kavedza) said Mackenzie bore primary criminal culpability. The term combines 100 years for murder by starvation and 100 years for direct homicide, to run consecutively. Prosecutors had sought the death penalty; the court declined.
Mackenzie and 28 others were convicted last month. More than 400 bodies were exhumed from Shakahola forest in 2023; he still faces separate manslaughter and terrorism charges, which he denies.
Justice Mochache called the killings ‘cold and calculated’, saying the perpetrators showed no remorse. Mackenzie was tried with 28 accomplices, including guards who enforced the fasting orders and gravediggers who helped conceal the bodies. The judge declined the death penalty, saying it would remove any prospect of rehabilitation; Kenya has not carried out an execution since 1987. The convictions were handed down on 19 October.