Kenyan cult leader charged with murder of 191 children

Kenyan cult leader Paul Mackenzie was charged with the murder of 191 children on Tuesday alongside 29 of his associates.

The bodies of those killed were found buried in a forest. Police say there are more bodies like those found with over 400 already exhumed.

But the defendants have all denied the charges brought before a court in the coastal town of Malindi.

Mackenzie was arrested last year April and already charged with terrorism-related crimes, manslaughter and torture.

He was convicted in December of producing and distributing films without a licence and sentenced to 12 months in jail.

– — –

According to prosecutors, Mackenzie ordered his followers to starve themselves and their children to death in order to go to heaven before the world ends.

In meeting their untimely death, the victims who were followers of his Good News International Church lived in several secluded settlements in an 800-acre area within the Shakahola forest.

Some of his followers said Mackenzie forbid them from sending their children to school and going to hospital when they were ill. The former taxi driver branded the institutions as Satanic.