A Kenyan court has sentenced religious cult leader Paul Mackenzie to 200 years in prison for the murders of 190 children and one adult, bringing to a close one of the most disturbing criminal trials in Kenya’s history. The sentence was handed down on Friday, November 6, 2026, by the High Court in Mombasa, the coastal city where the case has been heard. Justice Diana Kavedza, who presided over the trial, imposed two consecutive terms of 100 years each, one for murder by starvation and one for direct homicide, meaning that Mackenzie will spend the rest of his life in prison. The sentence was the harshest yet imposed in a case that has haunted Kenya since the discovery of mass graves in a remote forest in April 2023.
Mackenzie, the founder of the Good News International Church, was convicted on October 19, 2026, alongside 28 co-accused, on 191 counts of murder linked to deaths at Shakahola Forest in Kilifi County, between January 2021 and September 2023. The court found that Mackenzie had directed his followers to undertake extreme fasting, telling them that starving themselves and their children would allow them to meet Jesus before the end of the world. The practice, according to the prosecution, began with children and then extended to other members of the congregation. The conviction covered 191 victims, of whom 190 were children and one was an adult.
The sentencing hearing was the culmination of a case that has taken more than three years to reach its conclusion, from the first discovery of bodies in the forest to the final judgement in Mombasa. It is a case that has shocked Kenya and the wider world, not only because of the number of victims, but because so many of them were children, and because the deaths were the result of a deliberate teaching that turned a religious community into a place of mass death. The 200-year sentence is, in practical terms, a life sentence, and the court declined to impose the death penalty that prosecutors had sought.
Paul Mackenzie sentenced 200 years Shakahola: how the sentence was structured
The 200-year sentence is made up of two separate terms of 100 years each, which the court ordered to run consecutively rather than at the same time. The first 100-year term covers 183 counts of murder by starvation, involving one adult and 182 children. The second 100-year term covers eight counts of murder by direct homicide, involving child victims. Within each category, the sentences run concurrently with one another, but the two categories run consecutively, producing an aggregate sentence of 200 years. Justice Kavedza, reading out the judgement, said the sentence was composed of 100 years for murder by starvation and 100 years for direct homicide.
The distinction between the two categories reflects the different ways in which the victims died. The court found that starvation was established as the cause of death in 72 cases, while other victims died from asphyxia, manual neck compression and traumatic head injuries. The 183 starvation murders and the eight direct homicides together make up the 191 counts on which Mackenzie and his co-accused were convicted. The court’s finding that some victims were killed directly, rather than through starvation alone, added a further dimension to a case that was already among the worst of its kind.
Prosecutors had asked the court to impose the death penalty, but Justice Kavedza declined. The judge noted that executions have not been carried out in Kenya since 1987, and that imposing a death sentence would eliminate the prospect of rehabilitation. The decision means that Mackenzie will serve his sentence in prison rather than face execution, and it reflects a position that Kenyan courts have taken in other capital cases in recent years. The co-accused were also sentenced on the same day, with 15 receiving 160-year terms, 10 receiving 140-year terms, another receiving a 100-year term, and two others, Enos Amanya Ngala and Lucas Owino, each receiving 10 years.
All of those convicted have been given 14 days to file formal appeals against their convictions and sentences. An appeal would be heard by a higher court, and it could challenge either the convictions or the length of the sentences, or both. The existence of a right of appeal is a normal part of the Kenyan legal system, and it means that the sentences, while now imposed, are not yet beyond challenge. Any appeal would be a separate process, and it would take time to be heard.
How the Shakahola tragedy came to light
The case shocked Kenya in April 2023, when police began uncovering bodies in Shakahola Forest, near the coastal town of Malindi. What began as an investigation into a small number of deaths quickly became a large-scale exhumation operation, as investigators found shallow graves spread across a wide area of forest. The forest is part of a 320-hectare site known as Chakama Ranch, and the bodies were found in shallow graves and in latrines across the site. The scale of the discovery grew week by week, and the number of bodies recovered eventually reached 448, according to figures cited by the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights.
The trial that has now concluded covered only a portion of the deaths. The 191 murder counts relate to the victims whose cases the prosecution was able to prove to the court’s satisfaction, and they represent less than half of the bodies recovered from the forest. The remaining bodies are the subject of continuing investigations, and the authorities are still processing evidence related to more than 200 exhumed bodies recovered from the area. The distinction between the number of bodies found and the number of murders proved in court is an important one, and it means that the full scale of the tragedy may never be fully captured in a single trial.
Mackenzie is also accused of ordering the deaths of 52 people found at a separate location in a village about 30 kilometres away from the forest, which would bring the suspected total toll across the investigations to about 500. Those deaths are the subject of separate proceedings, and they were not part of the trial that ended with the November 6 sentencing. The figure of 500 suspected victims has been used to describe the case as one of the worst ceremonial massacres of modern times, and it places the Shakahola deaths among the deadliest cult-related tragedies ever recorded.
The Good News International Church and the teaching that led to death
Mackenzie founded the Good News International Church and led an apocalyptic Christian church in a forest near Kenya’s Indian Ocean coast. Prosecutors said he had told his followers to starve themselves to death, along with their children, to reach heaven before the end of the world. The church was registered as a religious society in 2020, with Mackenzie listed as chairman and Smart Deri listed as secretary. The registration gave the church a formal standing, but it did not prevent the events that followed.
In 2019, before the church was formally registered, the authorities shut down Mackenzie’s church in Malindi, and he relocated to the nearby Shakahola Forest. The move to the forest took the congregation away from the town and into a remote area where the authorities had less oversight. It was in the forest that the fasting practice took hold, and it was there that the deaths occurred over a period of more than two years, from January 2021 to September 2023. The remoteness of the location, and the closed nature of the community, made it difficult for outsiders to know what was happening until the first bodies were discovered.
The court found that Mackenzie bore the primary criminal culpability for relocating his followers to the wilderness and ordering them to fast to death. The judgement described a deliberate process, in which followers were moved to the forest, told to fast, and then left to die. The fasting began with children, according to the prosecution, before extending to other members of the congregation. That detail, that children were made to fast first, has been one of the most disturbing aspects of the case, and it helps explain why the conviction covered so many child victims.
The case also raised questions about how a religious leader could exercise such control over his followers, and about what the authorities could have done to intervene earlier. Mackenzie had been known to the authorities before the discovery of the bodies, and his church had been shut down in Malindi in 2019. The fact that he was able to relocate to the forest and continue his activities for more than two years has prompted debate in Kenya about the regulation of religious organisations, and about the balance between religious freedom and the protection of vulnerable people.
The trial and the conviction
The trial was one of the longest and most complex in Kenya’s recent history. Mackenzie was tried alongside 28 co-accused, and the prosecution presented evidence covering 191 counts of murder. The trial involved testimony from survivors, from investigators who had worked on the exhumations, and from medical experts who had examined the bodies. The court had to consider not only whether the deaths had occurred, but whether Mackenzie and his co-accused were criminally responsible for them, and whether the prosecution had proved each count beyond reasonable doubt.
The conviction was delivered on October 19, 2026, when the High Court found Mackenzie and the 28 co-accused guilty on all 191 counts. The judgement, read by Justice Kavedza, found that the prosecution had proved all of the counts, comprising 183 murders by starvation and eight murders by direct homicide, together with the death of one adult. The conviction was a significant moment for the prosecution, which had spent more than three years building the case, and for the families of the victims, many of whom had waited years for a verdict.
The sentencing hearing, held on November 6, was a separate stage of the proceedings. In Kenyan practice, as in many other legal systems, the court first decides whether the accused is guilty, and then hears submissions on the appropriate sentence. The prosecution argued for the death penalty, while the defence is understood to have argued for a lesser sentence. The court’s decision to impose two consecutive 100-year terms, rather than the death penalty, reflects the judge’s assessment of the seriousness of the offences and of the principles that should guide sentencing in a case of this kind.
The families and the wider impact in Kenya
For the families of the victims, the trial and the sentencing have been a long and painful process. Some families lost several children, and one father was reported to have lost six children. The discovery of the bodies in 2023 was followed by a long period of uncertainty, as families waited to learn whether their relatives were among the dead, and then waited for the trial to run its course. The identification of bodies, many of which had been buried in shallow graves, was a slow and difficult task, and some families may never have a full answer about what happened to their loved ones.
The impact of the case in Kenya has extended well beyond the families directly affected. The discovery of the mass graves prompted a national debate about the regulation of religious groups, and about the responsibility of the state to protect people from exploitation in the name of religion. President William Ruto appointed a task force in May 2023 to review the legal and regulatory framework for religious organisations, and separate government-backed and Senate proposals were published in the months that followed. The proposals reflected a recognition that the existing framework had not prevented the Shakahola deaths, and that reform was needed.
The case has also had an impact on the way Kenyans think about religious leadership and about the vulnerability of people who join closed religious communities. The Shakahola deaths have been compared, in Kenyan and international reporting, to other cult tragedies in history, but the scale of the deaths, and the number of children involved, have made it stand out even among those comparisons. The fact that the deaths occurred over more than two years, in a forest that was not far from a town, has added to the sense of shock.
What remains unresolved
The November 6 sentencing does not settle all of the questions raised by the Shakahola deaths. The trial covered 191 victims, but 448 bodies were recovered from the forest, and the suspected total across all investigations is about 500. The remaining cases are still being investigated, and further trials are possible. Mackenzie and several key associates still face separate trials in different court divisions, including proceedings related to the 52 deaths at the separate location. Those proceedings will take time, and they may produce further convictions or further acquittals.
The question of religious regulation in Kenya also remains open. The task force appointed by President Ruto in 2023 made recommendations, and proposals for reform have been published, but the process of turning those proposals into law is still under way. The debate about how to regulate religious organisations without infringing on religious freedom is a difficult one, and it is not unique to Kenya. The Shakahola case has made that debate more urgent, but it has not resolved it.
There is also the question of what happens to the survivors. Some followers of the church survived the fasting, either because they left the forest or because they were rescued by the authorities. Those survivors will need support, both in practical terms and in coming to terms with what they experienced. The trauma of the forest, and the loss of family members who died there, will stay with them for a long time, and the end of the trial does not mark the end of that process.
The sentencing of Paul Mackenzie to 200 years in prison is, for now, the most significant legal outcome of the Shakahola tragedy. It establishes, in the judgement of a Kenyan court, that Mackenzie was responsible for the deaths of 191 people, most of them children, and it imposes a punishment that will keep him in prison for the rest of his life. It does not bring back the dead, and it does not answer every question about how the deaths were allowed to happen. But it does provide a measure of accountability for a crime that Kenya, and the world, will not soon forget.
Sources
USN reviewed reporting from multiple outlets for this story. Read more from Reuters, Citizen Digital and The Jerusalem Post.