NAIROBI — As the leader of a cult whose members allegedly starved themselves to death at his behest appeared in court in Kenya, autopsies revealed some of his victims may have been killed rather than died of hunger.
A government pathologist said Tuesday that the bodies of at least two children exhibited signs of suffocation, suggesting they didn’t just starve to death like many of the other victims. In total, 110 bodies have so far been recovered from the graves in eastern Kenya, authorities involved in the exhumation told The Washington Post.A mortuary attendant who is helping to perform the autopsies at the Malindi Subcounty Hospital said that almost 50 were completed by Wednesday morning. About 20 of the bodies belonged to children aged 12 or younger, he said on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.
On Tuesday, a court ordered the continued detention of Mackenzie, pending the police investigation. He has been transferred to a court in Shanzu, near the port city of Mombasa.
His lawyer, Elisha Komora-Lawyer, said police are rushing to amass evidence because he must be formally charged by Friday. He added that after his earlier arrest last month he had been released for because the prosecution did not charge him in time.
“The burden of proof now lies with the prosecution to give evidence that yes indeed what has been seen in Shakahola was done by him,” he said, adding that his client was in good state of mind. “He was all laughing and taking to colleagues. He is in a good state of heath.”Authorities maintain that Mackenzie encouraged his followers of his Good News International Church to starve themselves to death to meet Jesus.
More than 460 people have been reported missing so far, according to the country’s Interior Ministry, raising the possibility there could be many more bodies in the forest.
The ministry added that bad weather had forced a halt to efforts to exhume bodies at the remote 800-acre site in a forest to the north of Mombasa. It said drones and helicopters were being used to search for any survivors.“We would see a lot of children and women coming in and out of the forest,” said Emmanuel Kenga, 23, who was among a group of villagers in Shakahola who helped government investigation officers and pathologists to exhume the bodies, in an interview Wednesday.
“Then we just stopped seeing them. Now it all makes sense, because when I am helping dig out these graves, there are so many children.” He said he witnessed women and children buried together, while older men were buried alone.
He and his father both tried to raise the alarm about the pastor’s activities, he continued, and believes that the deaths could have been prevented.
“The government had all the information,” Kenga said. “We did not know people were dying, but in January when we stopped seeing people, we started suspecting things were wrong.
“We even at some point tried getting into the forest, but the preacher’s followers stopped us, they were violent and even burned some of ourmotorbikes in one instance. There were also families who would come here looking for loved ones, that means this information was out there” he said.
Benson Mutimba traveled to Malindi to find his son who disappeared with the cult and has given statements to the police and DNA samples. “A police person in charge of children told me that they had rescued 40 children from the forest. I am hoping that among the children, I can find my son.”
Kenya is mostly Christian and there has been a rise in popularity of evangelical preachers. Christianity is occasionally blended with traditional beliefs, which in some cases have been denounced as cults.
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