A Kenyan court has handed down a 200-year prison sentence to doomsday cult leader Paul Mackenzie for the murder of 191 people, among them 190 children, after he instructed his followers to starve themselves to death in the belief that they would meet Jesus, according to the BBC.
In October, Mackenzie was convicted together with 28 co-defendants for the killings tied to his religious group in Shakahola Forest, located near Kenya’s coast.
When delivering the sentence on Friday, Justice Diana Mochache stated that Mackenzie carried the “primary criminal culpability” for directing his followers to undertake lethal fasts.
The court gave him 100 years for homicide and an additional 100 years for offenses connected to starvation.
The sentences within each category will run concurrently, while the two categories will run consecutively, making his total prison term 200 years.
According to the BBC, the judge called the killings “cold and calculated” and said the sentence was meant to convey an unmistakable message that such atrocities warranted the maximum penalties allowed by law.
Mackenzie’s 28 co-defendants, among them guards who enforced the fasting orders and gravediggers who helped hide the victims’ bodies, were given prison terms of up to 160 years.
Prosecutors had pushed for the death penalty, but the judge refused to impose it, reasoning that capital punishment would remove any possibility of rehabilitation.
Mackenzie was arrested in 2023 after authorities found hundreds of bodies buried in shallow graves in Shakahola Forest. Since then, more than 400 bodies have been exhumed from the area.
Investigations revealed that many of the victims died of starvation, while others suffered suffocation, strangulation, or head injuries.
Mackenzie established Good News International Ministries in 2003 and became known for sermons in which he portrayed education and healthcare as evil.
He subsequently relocated to the Shakahola forest and urged his followers to join him there.
He and his co-defendants had denied the allegations, maintaining that no one was forced to die.
The cult leader also faces separate charges of manslaughter and terrorism, which he denies.
