Two Kenyan pastors risk jail terms over cult massacre
Two pastors are scheduled to appear before Kenyan courts on Tuesday on suspicion of being responsible for the deaths of at least 109 people discovered buried in the “Shakahola forest massacre”
Kenya, a deeply religious country with a Christian majority and more than 4,000 registered churches, has been stunned by the revelations of people starving themselves to find God.
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Tuesday is the day that the two men are scheduled to appear in courts in separate cities.
Paul Mackenzie Nthenge, the self-proclaimed pastor who founded the Good News International Church in 2003, will stand trial in the coastal town of Malindi on charges of inciting his followers to starve to death “to meet Jesus” at the sleepy nearby outpost of Shakahola.
After his arrest in Malindi on Thursday, the wealthy and well-known teleevangelist Ezekiel Odero is expected to appear in court in the East African nation’s second largest city, Mombasa.
Odero is suspected of murder, suicide assistance, kidnapping, radicalization, crimes against humanity, child cruelty, fraud, and money laundering.
The prosecution is requesting that he be detained for an additional 30 days, citing credible evidence linking the exhumed bodies at Shakahola to the deaths of several “innocent and vulnerable followers” of Odero’s New Life Prayer Central and Church.
Mackenzie Nthenge gathered his flock in the forest where 30 mass graves containing more than 100 bodies, the majority of whom were children, were discovered.
Mackenzie Nthenge, who turned himself in on April 14 after police entered the forest in response to a tip, is accused of murder, kidnapping, and cruelty to children, among other crimes, according to court documents.
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According to court documents, Odero and Nthenge share a “history of business investments” that includes a television station used to broadcast “radicalised messages” to followers.
On Monday, the first autopsies were performed on nine children and one woman from Shakahola.
Authorities confirmed that starvation was the cause of death, although some victims were also asphyxiated.
It has been questioned how a self-proclaimed pastor with a history of extremism managed to evade law enforcement despite his notoriety.
It has also seen President William Ruto intervene in Kenya’s indigenous religious movements and failed attempts to regulate criminally active churches and cults.
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