Cult leader gets 200 years for Shakahola starvation deaths

A Kenyan court has sentenced cult preacher Paul Mackenzie to 200 years in prison for the Shakahola massacre in Kilifi County, which claimed 191 lives. High Court Judge Diana Kavedza found Mackenzie responsible for orchestrating the deaths of his followers through starvation and direct violence.

Mackenzie, founder of Good News International Ministries, received 100 years for each of 183 murder-by-starvation counts and another 100 years for eight counts of murder by direct homicide. The court said he instructed followers to undertake prolonged fasting, targeting children first.

“Convict Paul Mckenzie bears the primary criminal culpability.”

The judge ruled that Mackenzie presided over burials he called weddings and directed violence against those who tried to abandon the fasting exercise. He was described as bearing primary criminal culpability as the overall leader of GNI Ministries and the Shakahola settlement.

His second-in-command Smart Mwakalama and security chief Stephen Sangamuya were each sentenced to 160 years. Ten other defendants, including former pastor Julius Katana, received 140-year sentences each.

Additional followers, including Michael Meribiah and Titus, were handed 160-year sentences. Enos Amaniangala and Dukas Owinna Ogola each received 10 years, with Amaniangala also ordered to serve three years of probation after prison.

The court considered Mackenzie's confession and expression of remorse as mitigating circumstances. The source text ends mid-sentence while describing how convicts denied responsibility before the court.