Marshall Applewhite, Jim Jones, David Koresh — to that list of infamous cult leaders who led their followers to their deaths should be added Pastor Paul Mackenzie. Mackenzie convinced his hundreds of followers that the path to Jesus was through starvation. He also opposed formal education and believed in a global conspiracy involving the Vatican, the UN, and the U.S., and that doctors “serve a different god.”
Shakahola based preacher,Pastor Paul Mackenzie, remains in Police Custody for 30 more days. pic.twitter.com/V34jRPyIYI
— Allan Obare (@AllanObare4) May 10, 2023
But autopsies of Mackenzie’s deceased followers, whose remains were found in a mass grave near Malindi on Kenya’s Indian Ocean coast, show that vital organs may have been harvested from the bodies. So far, 133 bodies have been found in two locations. And Mackenzie remains in jail while the investigation continues.
“We have 21 bodies exhumed today from nine graves, and this exercise will continue tomorrow,” said regional commissioner Rhoda Onyancha. The latest exhumations took the overall toll to 133, she added.
Court documents filed on Monday said some of the corpses had their organs removed, with police alleging the suspects were engaged in forced harvesting of body parts.
“Post mortem reports have established missing organs in some of the bodies of victims who have been exhumed,” chief inspector Martin Munene said in an affidavit filed to a Nairobi court.
It is “believed that trade on human body organs has been well coordinated involving several players,” he said, giving no details about the suspected trafficking.
Munene said Ezekiel Odero, a high-profile televangelist who was arrested last month in connection with the same case and granted bail on Thursday, had received “huge cash transactions,” allegedly from Mackenzie’s followers who sold their property at the cult leader’s bidding.
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Mackenzie was obsessed with the idea of “Judgment Day” and gave frequent warnings of an omnipotent satanic force that has supposedly infiltrated the highest echelons of power around the world. But it was his demand that followers turn over all their belongings and wealth that puts him in the same class as Jones, Applewhite, and Koresh.
Mackenzie now faces charges over the deaths. The victims came from all corners of the country, drawn to a man whose controversial teachings had come under government scrutiny as far back as 2017. Mackenzie’s apocalyptic narratives focused on the end of times, and were against the modern or western ways of life such as seeking medical services, education or music. His conspiracy theories emphasised the Catholic Church, the US and the United Nations as “agents of Satan”.
His other brush with the law came in 2019, when he faced counts of incitement to disobedience of the law and distributing unauthorised films to the public.
That same year, he closed the church, sold his TV station and moved to a ranch in a forested area of Kilifi county, where hundreds of families built houses. The church and TV station were sold to Ezekiel Odero, another televangelist. Odero is well known for his so-called miracle healing crusades, which draw tens of thousands. He is also under investigation for offences associated with the Shakahola mass suicide.
These are charlatans and shysters who decided to go into the organ harvesting business. Rather than recruit people to donate their organs, they decided to skip the wait for donors to die and ended up convincing them to kill themselves.
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