The sentence, 100 years for murder by starvation and 100 years by direct homicide, came two weeks after a court in Mombasa found him guilty. The case ranks among the worst cult disasters in recent history. Paul Mackenzie, leader of a Kenyan doomsday sect, was sentenced to 200 years in prison for the murders of 190 children and one adult after followers were ordered to starve themselves and their families.
The plight of his followers began to emerge in March 2023, when a man told police his brother and wife had starved their children to death in the forest on Mackenzie’s orders.
Mackenzie forbade cult members from sending their children to school and from going to hospital when they were ill, describing such institutions as satanic.
The Shakahola tragedy has gripped Kenya since the discovery of mass graves in the forest more than three years ago.
Mackenzie was arrested in 2023 after police received a tip-off. Weeks later, authorities began uncovering bodies in shallow graves in the Shakahola forest near the coast in south-eastern Kenya. It raised questions about how Mackenzie was able to continue operating despite being on the radar of the authorities since 2017, when police searched his premises.
Prosecutors said that while he was in detention he also directed the deaths of 52 people in Kwa Binzaro village, about 18 miles from Shakahola. Mackenzie has pleaded not guilty in that case. He was arrested but released on bail. Relatives said he then brought forward the date on which he told his followers the world would end.
Mackenzie, a former taxi driver, denied the murder charges. He said he did not force the victims to starve. The court rejected that argument.