Kenyan cult leader Paul Mackenzie sentenced to 200 years in prison for murder of 190 children

A Kenyan court sentenced cult leader Paul Mackenzie on Friday to 200 years in prison for the murders of 190 children starved to death on his orders and buried in a forest, among 500 suspected victims of one of the worst ceremonial massacres of modern times.

The sentence consisted of 100 years for murder by starvation and 100 years by direct homicide, Justice Diana Kavedza said, reading out the judgment.

Prosecutors said Mackenzie, who led an apocalyptic Christian church in a forest near eastern Kenya's Indian Ocean coast, had told his followers to starve themselves to death, along with their children, to reach heaven before the end of the world.

His accomplices threatened and beat victims to ensure they followed his orders. The emaciated bodies were found scattered in shallow graves and dumped in latrines. Some had been buried alive.

Mackenzie, wearing a grey polo shirt and black trousers, did not react as the judge read out his sentence in a tent set up outside the court where the hearing was held.

He had denied murder charges, saying he did not force the victims to starve. The court rejected his defence.

Kenyan cult leader faces 191 murder charges in child mass starvation deaths

Twenty-eight accomplices received sentences ranging from 10 to 160 years. All were found guilty at a trial last month.

Defence lawyer Lawrence Obonyo, who represents Mackenzie and almost all of the others convicted, said he would appeal the ruling.

Kavedza said Mackenzie had won the trust of his victims through his charismatic media presence and then targeted defenceless, vulnerable followers. Those who tried to break the fast were beaten and tied up, she said.

"Children observed as their siblings dropped dead after enduring hunger for days," she said. "Those who stole food or water were beaten, their hands tied and locked up in houses, turned into fasting bays to die."

Father lost 6 children

The case shocked Kenya in April 2023 when police began uncovering bodies in Shakahola Forest, near the coastal town of Malindi.

Although only the cases of 190 children and one adult victim were covered by the trial, the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights says 448 bodies were ultimately found in the forest.

Mackenzie is also accused of ordering the deaths of 52 people found at a separate location in a village 30 kilometres away, bringing the suspected total toll to 500. He has pleaded not guilty in that case.

The scale of the killing is comparable to that of a doomsday cult that killed more than 700 people in Uganda in 2000, and the 1978 Jonestown massacre in Guyana, when an American cult leader killed more than 900 people by ordering them to drink poison.

Stephen Mwiti, 48, the father of six of Mackenzie's child victims and the husband of one of his convicted accomplices, said his wife had taken the children to Shakahola, where they were starved to death.

"I lost children and I will not be able to get them back no matter what happens to Mackenzie and his accomplices," Mwiti said. "I expect him to be sentenced to death or be jailed for life so that he never comes out to cause more deaths."

Dan Mackenzie, one of Paul's sons, said his father did not spare his own family.

"I didn't end up in Shakahola, because I didn't believe anymore about … going to heaven. So I left the church and started doing my own thing," he told Reuters. "I lost friends, too, and my younger brother. It's justice to the people who we lost over there in Shakahola."

Calls for more accountability

Mackenzie had been on the radar of the authorities since 2017 when his premises were searched by police. In 2019, authorities shut down Mackenzie's church in Malindi and he relocated to the nearby Shakahola Forest.

The discoveries prompted calls for tighter oversight of religious groups. Kenyan President William Ruto appointed a task force in May 2023 to review the legal and regulatory framework, and separate government-backed and Senate proposals were published in 2024, though they have yet to be passed into law.

Ojiro Odhiambo, head of rapid response at the Kenya Human Rights Commission, said the conviction was an important step, but accountability should go further, as local administrators, police, intelligence officers and religious leaders bore responsibility for failing to act on repeated warning signs.

"All these people have failed the people," he said.

Kavedza agreed that Kenyan institutions had failed and she called for Parliament to take steps to prevent it from happening again.

In 2023, Ruto said he took responsibility as president for the government having failed to prevent the deaths.