Doomsday Cultists Face Multiple Charges Including Murder

Doomsday Cultists Face Multiple Charges Including Murder

(FeaturedHeadlines.com) – Dozens of members of a Christianity-based cult in Kenya face criminal charges, including murder, manslaughter, and child torture, after investigators found numerous mass graves with the bodies of hundreds of suspected cult victims. Paul Mackenzie, leader of Good News International Ministries, and more than 90 other people are facing prosecution for the alleged crimes.

In April 2023, Kenyan authorities rescued some members of the cult, who claimed that Mackenzie told them to starve themselves to death before the end of the world, in order to meet Jesus Christ. Police subsequently discovered mass graves around the cult’s Shakahola Forest commune, from which more than 400 bodies were recovered.

Prosecutors brought the charges after holding Mackenzie and other suspects in custody since their arrests last April. A Kenyan magistrate court ordered prosecutors to charge the suspects, lest the court release them from custody. Kenyan public prosecutions director Mulele Ingonga said that 95 people will face charges in connection with the alleged crimes.

Mackenzie and 30 other suspects tied to the cult appeared in court on January 17, where a judge ordered they undergo mental health assessments before entering pleas in the case. The suspects are set to return to the court on February 6.

Mackenzie, who is serving a separate prison sentence for illegally operating a film studio, allegedly required cult members to destroy personal documents, complicating authorities’ efforts to identify the bodies of the victims. Only 11 of the 191 dead children have been identified. Victims’ causes of death include starvation, suffocation, and strangulation.

Mackenzie opposed formal education and vaccinations in his sermons to the cult. Mackenzie also claimed that satanic forces occupy influential positions around the world and seek to create a global authoritarian government.

However, Mackenzie allegedly ended up using his power as a cult leader to lead hundreds of people to their deaths — an act for which Kenyan prosecutors are now seeking worldly justice.

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