In one of the worst cult-related tragedies ever to occur, the head of a Kenyan hunger sect was charged with manslaughter on Monday.
One of the numerous cases brought against them in January for what is known as the” Shakahola Forest Massacre” was the self-declared pastor Paul Nthenge Mackenzie, who along with dozens of other suspects, entered a not-guilty plea in January to manslaughter.
According to prosecutors and judge officials, Mackenzie and more than 90 additional suspects showed up in a lawyer’s court in Mombasa, the Indian Ocean port city.
According to Kenyan counsel Alexander Jami Yamina,” there has never been a murder case like this in Kenya,” the defendants will be charged under a law governing suicide pacts.
” This is going to be a very special case of manslaughter.”
In a situation that allegedly caused dread in Kenya and around the world, Mackenzie is accused of conspiring to make his followers starve to death.
After several systems were first discovered in the distant Shakahola jungle inland from Malindi, a town in the Indian Ocean, in April of last year, he was detained.
Around 448 systems have been discovered from mass graves, thanks to months of intensive search by rescuers in the marshland.
The majority of patients, according to autopsies, passed away from starvation. But people, including babies, appeared to have been strangled, beaten or suffocated.
Some of the body ‘ organs were removed, according to earlier court records.
– Some bodies are given to people;
At least 420 testimony have been prepared by the prosecution, with the reading scheduled to work for four weeks until Thursday.
” Due to the gravity of the case, we have prepared well”, Yamina said.
Some testimonies may record their testimony in public.
The suspects, 55 men and 40 ladies, are accused of violence in connection with the killings of Shakahola and are also accused of murder, child abuse, and violence in relation to the deaths, which according to the prosecution, occurred between 2020 and 2023.
After months of trying to identify the systems of some victims using DNA, the authorities started releasing their bodies to heartbroken relatives in March of this year. So much 34 have been returned.
Mackenzie claimed to have started his Good News International Church in 2003 but that he had moved to Shakahola in order to get ready for what he had predicted would happen in August of last year.
Despite having a record of fanaticism and prior legal cases, questions have been raised about how Mackenzie managed to evade law enforcement as a result of the terrible event.
A committee headed by President William Ruto to look into the deaths and evaluate spiritual organization regulations issued its report next month, calling for a hybrid design of self-regulation and authorities oversight.
According to independent reports from the Kenyan Senate and a state-funded human rights organization, the government could had prevented the murders.
In the past, attempts to stifle religious freedom in a state with a majority-Christian population have frequently been strongly opposed as attempts to undermine democratic guarantees regarding the division of church and state.
