The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, Kenya, secured 200 years imprisonment in the case against religious cult leader Paul Mackenzie, 53, on Friday, November 6, 2026.
In a statement issued from the office of Director of Public Prosecution Renson Ingonga, Justice Diana Kavedza sentenced Mackenzie, a pastor in the Good News International Church, to 200 years over the murder of 191 persons.
“The Director of the Public Prosecution has today secured a jail term of 200 years for the controversial 53-year-old preacher Paul Nthenge Mackenzie and a jail term of between 100 years and 160 years for 26 co-convicts for the murder of 191 persons at Shakahola Forest in Malindi Sub County, Kilifi County, between January 2021 and September 2023,” began the statement.
It went on, “15 convicts were sentenced to 160 years imprisonment; 10 convicts were jailed for a term of 140 years; one accused was jailed to 100 years, and two- Enos Amanya and Lucas Owino were each jailed for 10 years.”
The convicts were sentenced on 183 counts of murder by starvation, 8 counts of murder by direct homicide, and one count of death of an adult.
The prosecution team was led by the DPP and comprised Peter Kiprop, Head of the Coast Region, Jami Yamina, Victor Owiti, Ngina Mutua, Betty Rubia and Yassir Mohammed. Lady Justice Kavedza ruled that the prosecution team established death in all 191 counts, with starvation as the cause of death in 72 cases and additional deaths from asphyxia, manual neck compression, and traumatic head injury.
The court also found that in 110 cases, the cause of death was unascertained due to decomposition and the surrounding circumstances supported the inference that these victims also died from starvation under the fasting regime.
The Shakahola massacre was one of the deadliest cases of religious extremism in Kenya’s history. It unfolded in Shakahola Forest, within Chakama Ranch in Kilifi County, where hundreds of followers of the Good News International Church, led by controversial preacher Paul Nthenge Mackenzie, died after being subjected to extreme fasting practices reportedly intended to help them reach heaven.
The tragedy came to national attention in April 2023 after reports of missing people led to investigations and the discovery of shallow graves and severely malnourished survivors. Local residents and human rights organization Haki Africa helped bring the situation to the attention of authorities.
Subsequent exhumations revealed hundreds of bodies. By October 2023, the Kenyan Senate’s investigative committee reported that 428 bodies had been recovered from the forest, with another suspect’s death bringing the recorded toll to 429 at that point.
The scale of the deaths, the involvement of children, the use of religious teachings to justify starvation and the discovery of mass graves shocked audiences beyond Kenya. International media organizations reported extensively on the case, bringing global attention to the dangers of religious manipulation, extremist preaching and the exploitation of vulnerable followers.
