Nairobi. A judge extended this Monday for another month the preventive detention imposed on the leader of a Christian sect in southern Kenya who, allegedly, persuaded more than 300 people to fast until death and thus meet Jesus Christ, whose bodies were found in graves and exhumed.
According to the latest official data, 336 people have died and 613 have been reported missing, while 95 people have been rescued alive and 36 have been detained.
The judge of the Shanzu court, in the coastal city of Mombasa (south), Yusuf Shikanda, decided to keep pastor Paul Mackenzie in police custody, while he granted his wife, Rhoda Maweu, bail, according to local media reports.
In total, of the thirty suspects who remained in pretrial detention for the events that occurred in the Shakahola forest, the magistrate allowed eleven to regain their freedom within three days and established that the rest would continue to be held for sixty more days, whose count began on June 2, while investigations continue.
Almost all the bodies of those killed in the so-called “Shakahola massacre” have been exhumed from graves and mass graves in that forest, of more than 320 hectares, and only a few died in hospital given the seriousness of their condition.
On June 21, the third phase of the autopsies began after examining more than a hundred corpses and showing that, although all showed signs of starvation, at least three minors and one adult also had signs of strangulation and suffocation.
In this sense, the first investigations by the Police suggest that the faithful were forced to continue fasting even if they wanted to abandon it.
Two weeks ago, the Prosecutor’s Office reported the death of one of the suspects after having held a hunger strike during his detention and after Judge Shikanda ordered the transfer of Mackenzie and the others from police stations to the city jail. from Malindi (south).
The magistrate made that decision after the request of the Prosecutor’s Office in the face of the weakness of some suspects who supported the hunger strike in police custody, so that they were forced to eat and avoided the risk of death.
Those who have not stopped eating are Mackenzie and one of his assistants, according to the information provided in court.
Kenyan President William Ruto apologized on behalf of the government on May 14 for failing to prevent the deaths.
Mackenzie, in police custody since April 14, leads the Good News International Church.
An ecstasy driver, the pastor was already arrested last March after being accused of the death of two children in similar circumstances, but he was released on bail.
