What to know about Kenya's starvation cult after its leader is convicted on 191 murder charges

A Kenyan pastor has been convicted on 191 murder charges after he forced followers to starve their children and themselves so they would die and have an opportunity to enter heaven and be with Jesus.

Pastor Paul Mackenzie was convicted alongside 28 others who helped run a sect connected to Mackenzie's Good News International Church in coastal southeast Kenya.

A judge said in her ruling Monday that MacKenzie and his helpers and guards controlled a system in which religious teachings and a church hierarchy were used to enforce “deadly fasting” on followers after they set up a community in a forest.

The murder charges involve the deaths of 190 children and one adult. Mackenzie and others also face separate manslaughter, terrorism and child torture charges in the deaths of more than 230 others. He has denied all the charges, saying he didn't force his followers to starve themselves. His co-defendants in that case have also pleaded not guilty.

Mackenzie and the others face life in prison at their sentencing for the murder convictions, scheduled for Nov. 6.

Kenya has the death penalty, but has not executed anyone since 1987, and has left capital punishment to the judge's discretion since a Supreme Court ruling in 2017 that mandatory death penalties for murder are unconstitutional.

Here's what to know about one of the world's worst cult-related tragedies:

The sect was uncovered in April 2023 after Mackenzie had closed his church premises in the coastal resort town of Malindi and moved with hundreds of followers inland to the nearby Shakahola Forest.

Police investigating reports of people going missing found emaciated followers and shallow graves spread across a large ranch in the forest. It took weeks to exhume more than 400 bodies, many of them from mass graves . For most, starvation was the cause of death in what became known as the Shakahola massacre, but some died from suffocation, strangulation or head injuries, according to postmortem reports.

The cause of death for others couldn't be determined because the bodies had decomposed. A small number of victims died soon after being rescued because they were so emaciated.

Mackenzie is a former street vendor and taxi driver who set up his evangelical Good News International Church in Malindi in 2003. Some of his preaching included opposition to formal schooling, some medicines and vaccinations.

He was detained in 2019 for opposing the government’s efforts to assign national identification numbers to Kenyans, saying the numbers were satanic.

That year, he closed his church premises and took his followers to the ranch in the forest, where they built houses and lived in villages with biblical names like Nazareth, according to survivors.

The COVID-19 pandemic encouraged his apocalyptic teachings that the end of the world was coming, and he and the sect hierarchy began to enforce stringent fasting, even forbidding parents to feed their children.

Those who tried to oppose his teachings or leave the forest were beaten, according to survivors.

Justice Diana Kavedza, who delivered the guilty verdicts on Monday, said evidence showed they had encouraged and later enforced fasting as a way to enter heaven, starting with children. She said it began around January 2021 and lasted more than two years before authorities discovered what was happening.

Mackenzie and his co-accused were formally charged in February 2024. Prosecutors presented evidence from 123 witnesses, they said, including some children who were caught up in the sect.

Two other defendants facing murder charges died during the prosecution.

AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa