Kenyan doomsday cult leader sentenced to 200 years for murders of 191 people

Paul Mackenzie was convicted of murdering 190 children and one adult (Brian Inganga/AP)

The leader of a Kenyan doomsday cult linked to the deaths of more than 400 people has been sentenced to 200 years in prison for the murders of 191 people.

The High Court in Kenya’s coastal city of Mombasa issued the sentence for Pastor Paul Mackenzie.

He was convicted of murdering 190 children and one adult after he ordered his followers to starve themselves to death in order to meet Jesus.

Justice Diana Kavedza said that Mackenzie, leader of the Good News International Church, bore the “primary criminal culpability” for relocating his followers to a remote location and ordering them to fast to death.

Mackenzie was charged with the murders alongside 28 of his followers, including guards who enforced his fasting directives and gravediggers who helped conceal the mass graves.

All denied the charges, except for one person who confessed and pleaded for leniency.

On October 19, the court found all 29 of the accused guilty of the murder of 191 people.

In 2023, more than 400 bodies were exhumed from shallow graves on the 800-acre Chakama Ranch in the coastal Kilifi County, where Mackenzie’s followers lived in mud huts, away from the scrutiny of local communities and authorities.