Kenyan court sentences cult leader Paul Mackenzie to 200 years over 191 murders

A Mombasa court sentenced Good News International Church founder Paul Mackenzie and 27 co-accused for the starvation deaths of 191 people, nearly all children.

• Mackenzie was sentenced on Friday at the Mombasa High Court alongside 27 co-accused, all convicted on October 19 of the murders.
• Prosecutors had sought the death penalty for Mackenzie and life sentences for his co-accused, citing what they described as his lack of remorse.
• Mackenzie was arrested in 2023 after more than 400 bodies were exhumed from shallow graves in Shakahola forest.
• Mackenzie and his co-accused had pleaded not guilty and formally asked the court for leniency before sentencing.
• The sentence was handed down by Justice Diana Kavedza and comprised 100 years for death by starvation and 100 years for direct homicide.
• The court heard that Mackenzie and his accomplices ordered followers to starve themselves and their children to death in a doomsday sect.