Kenyan cult leader Paul Mackenzie and seven others linked to an apocalyptic sect were charged Wednesday with the deaths of 52 people whose bodies were found in mass graves in southeastern Kenya in 2025, according to the court indictment.
Mackenzie and others were already facing murder and terrorism charges in connection with the deaths of people whose bodies had been exhumed earlier in the Shakahola forest, in one of the biggest cult-related disasters in recent history.
Prosecutors allege that Mackenzie and his Good News International Church ran a cult in which they instructed followers to starve themselves and their children to death in order to go to heaven before the end of the world. Mackenzie has denied the allegations.
In 2025, two years after the start of the investigation, prosecutors said that more than 400 bodies had been found in the Shakahola forest, located in Kilifi County, on the east coast of Kenya.
Investigators expanded their search to other suspicious burial sites and, by August 2025, 52 bodies had been exhumed from shallow pits in and around Kwa Binzaro, about 30 km (18 miles) from Shakahola.
Mackenzie and the other defendants appeared before a magistrate in Mombasa City on Wednesday for a joint hearing in the latest case.
Prosecutors allege that Mackenzie orchestrated and oversaw the offenses committed at Kwa Binzaro, continuing to direct them after his incarceration in 2023 and using methods including radical teachings to lure victims to the isolated site.
In late January, Kenya's Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) stated in a press release published on the social media platform X: "The court has heard that investigators found handwritten notes in Mackenzie's (prison) cells detailing (financial) transactions carried out via mobile phones."
The indictment stated that the defendants were being prosecuted for murder, participation in organized criminal activity under Kenya's organized crime law, and offenses related to radicalization and facilitating terrorist acts under the country's counter-terrorism framework.
