Shakahola cult: Mackenzie charged over 52 more deaths

A self-proclaimed preacher in Kenya linked to an infamous starvation cult that killed more than 400 people was charged on Wednesday over a further 52 deaths, prosecutors said.

In a case that made global headlines in 2023, hundreds of bodies were discovered just inland from the Kenyan beach resort of Malindi, in what became known as the "Shakahola Forest Massacre", one of the world's worst cult-related tragedies.

Self-proclaimed pastor Paul Mackenzie has pleaded not guilty to multiple counts of manslaughter at his trial in Mombasa and has remained in custody.

But last year, more bodies were discovered in the remote village of Binzaro, around 30 kilometres (20 miles) from Shakahola along the Indian Ocean coast, suggesting the same cult had continued to operate even after Mackenzie's arrest.

The public prosecutions office said in a statement on X that it had charged Mackenzie and others with "organized criminal activity, two counts of radicalisation (and) two counts of facilitating commission of a terrorist act" in relation to the "deaths of at least 52 people at Kwa Binzaro area in Chakama, Kilifi County."

The defendants have again pleaded not guilty and the next hearing in the case is due on March 4.

"They are alleged to have promoted an extreme belief system by preaching against the authority of the government, adopted an extreme belief system against authority, and facilitated the commission of a terrorist act," the prosecutor's office said.

Efforts to regulate religion in the majority-Christian country have been fiercely opposed in the past as undermining constitutional guarantees of the division between Church and state.