By Our Democracy News GH
October 20, 2026
A Kenyan court has found doomsday cult leader Paul Mackenzie and 28 other leaders of his religious group guilty of murdering 191 people, most of them children, in a case linked to the mass deaths in Shakahola Forest near Kenya’s coast.
Mackenzie was accused of directing followers to starve themselves and their children to death in the belief that they would meet Jesus. His teachings reportedly prohibited formal education and described modern medicine as evil.
Delivering an eight-hour judgment in the coastal city of Mombasa, Justice Diana Mochache said Mackenzie’s followers regarded him as “Jesus’s mouthpiece”.
The 28 other defendants were also convicted after pleading not guilty to the charges and repeatedly maintaining that nobody had been forced to die.
According to evidence presented in court, the cult’s practices included forcing members to continue fasting despite severe physical distress. One of Mackenzie’s co-accused reportedly said followers who resisted the fasting directive were to be forced to heaven through physical violence.
The court also heard that burials in the forest were referred to as “weddings”, with those who died described as having “wedded with Jesus”.
One witness testified that a pregnant woman had been prevented from breastfeeding her newborn, who died 12 days later. The woman was allegedly instructed to fast to death and follow her children.
Mackenzie was arrested in 2023 after authorities discovered bodies in shallow graves in Shakahola Forest. More than 400 bodies have since been discovered in the area, where the self-proclaimed pastor had encouraged followers from across Kenya to settle.
The verdict marks the first time Mackenzie has received a judgment on the most serious murder charges. He and other leaders also face separate legal proceedings involving allegations of terrorism, radicalisation and denying children access to education.
He is scheduled to be sentenced on November 6, 2026.
Families recount devastating losses
The case has left families and survivors grappling with the loss of relatives who followed Mackenzie’s teachings.
Stephen Mwiti, 48, said he lost all six of his children in Shakahola Forest. His former wife was among those convicted alongside Mackenzie.
“I’m a happy man, that all persons have been convicted,” Mwiti said outside the court.
He previously said he had only been able to find and bury the remains of his son, Samuel.
Gravediggers hired to exhume bodies described finding multiple victims in individual graves, including infants and young children. Some remains were reportedly found with limbs tied or wrapped in bedsheets.
The discoveries shocked communities around Shakahola, where some residents had encountered members of the religious group while they travelled to nearby settlements to obtain supplies and water.
How Mackenzie’s following grew
Mackenzie established Good News International Ministries in 2003, building a following through church branches across Kenya and a television station, Times TV, which broadcast his sermons from Malindi.
His teachings reportedly included claims that education was evil, healthcare contradicted religious doctrine and digital identity cards represented the mark of the devil.
The church’s main operation closed in 2019, after which Mackenzie moved to Shakahola Forest and encouraged followers to join him.
Some former members said life in the forest initially appeared ordinary, with families living in mud houses and observing periods of fasting. However, the prohibition on medication and the pressure to continue fasting contributed to the suffering of vulnerable followers, according to accounts presented in the report.
Peter Shukrani, 23, who was rescued from the forest, said his mother had discarded medication he needed because she believed Mackenzie’s teachings that medicine was evil.
“I would have died if I wasn’t rescued from Shakahola forest,” he said.
Despite his experience, Shukrani continued to defend Mackenzie before the verdict, saying followers had made their own decisions to fast.
In contrast, Mackenzie’s son, Dan Paul Mackenzie, argued before the judgment that his father should be held responsible for the deaths because of his leadership and influence over the followers.
The court’s verdict represents a major development in the Shakahola case, which exposed the dangers of extreme religious teachings and the deaths of hundreds of people in the forest.
