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A Kenyan court has delivered the first murder verdict in one of the worst cult tragedies in modern history. On Monday, the Mombasa High Court convicted preacher Paul Nthenge Mackenzie and his co-accused of 191 murders — 190 children and one adult — in the Shakahola starvation cult case, more than three years after mass graves were discovered in a remote Kenyan forest.
Here is what the court found, how the case unfolded, and what happens next.
What the court decided
Lady Justice Diana Kavedza delivered the judgment in a hearing lasting more than eight hours, finding that the prosecution had proved the murder charges beyond reasonable doubt. The 191 deaths occurred between January 2021 and September 2023 in Shakahola, Kilifi County.
The court ruled that the deaths resulted from an organized system: religious teachings and a defined chain of command were used to impose and enforce extreme fasting on followers of Mackenzie's Good News International Church, which the court formally found to operate as a cult. The fasting orders traveled through village elders, were reinforced at regular meetings, and were enforced by guards who restricted movement and blocked escape attempts. Children were made to fast first, ahead of other groups.
The court rejected the defense's claim that followers had fasted voluntarily. Evidence — from 123 witnesses, DNA analysis, medical reports and mass-grave findings — showed that most victims starved, while some died by strangulation and asphyxiation. The court also heard that Mackenzie discouraged followers from seeking medical treatment, vaccinations and antenatal care.
How Shakahola was uncovered
The tragedy drew national and international outrage, and raised hard questions about oversight: Mackenzie had previously been arrested over his teachings and his church was shut down in 2019, yet he moved his operations to the Shakahola area and continued. The case has renewed calls in Kenya for stronger regulation of religious organizations and better protection of children and vulnerable followers.
What happens next
The court has scheduled sentencing for November 6, 2026, with pre-sentence reports due October 30. Mackenzie remains in custody and faces separate proceedings on other alleged offenses connected to Shakahola, including terrorism, radicalization, child cruelty and manslaughter charges.
The verdict closes the first chapter of legal accountability for a tragedy that exposed how isolation, apocalyptic preaching and absolute obedience can turn deadly at scale. Beyond the courtroom, the case has forced Kenya into a difficult national conversation: how does a country protect religious freedom while preventing the next Shakahola? Proposals for tighter oversight of religious organizations have been debated since the graves were found — but crafting rules that stop coercive cults without punishing legitimate faiths remains unsolved, in Kenya and far beyond. For more on the region's hardest stories, see our coverage of the Eritrea-Ethiopia escalation. Kenyan media coverage of the verdict is collected at Uzalendo News.
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