Shakahola massacre: Court told Mackenzie forced Muslim victims to convert to Christianity

Protected witnesses on Monday gave harrowing testimony in the ongoing murder trial of controversial preacher Paul Mackenzie and 29 co-accused, linked to the deaths of more than 400 people in the Shakahola Forest massacre.

Three witnesses – a 19-year-old man, a 10-year-old boy, and an 18-year-old man – recounted disturbing details of life inside Mackenzie’s Good News International Church before Lady Justice Diana Kavedza at the Mombasa High Court.

One of the witnesses, identified as O.H. alias P.P., told the court he was forced, along with his parents, to convert from Islam to Christianity to join the Makongeni branch of Mackenzie’s church in Nairobi.

He recalled Mackenzie’s sermons, delivered through CDs and memory verses, that condemned formal education, medicine, and even the Huduma Number registration, which the preacher described as the “mark of the beast.”

P.P. testified that in Shakahola, Mackenzie preached that followers should fast to death in stages, beginning with children, followed by women, the elderly, and finally himself. He claimed Jesus awaited them in the afterlife.

The witness described burial rituals, referred to as “weddings,” where deceased children were said to have “wedded Jesus” as followers clapped and sang hymns.

A second witness, 10-year-old E.G.W., recounted how his father took him to Shakahola, where they lived in an area called “Bethlehem.”

He recalled the deaths of two of his siblings and identified the “death clothes” he had been instructed to wear: a turquoise shirt and white trousers. He later confirmed the deaths of his mother and brother through DNA-supported post-mortem reports presented in court.

The third witness, J.N.K., said his mother pulled him out of school in class five after watching Mackenzie’s sermons that dismissed education and medicine as sinful. He later found his mother and four siblings in Shakahola, where he witnessed burials disguised as “weddings.”

J.N.K. said he escaped after being locked in a house with his siblings for a week while fasting, fleeing on a bicycle to Kakuyuni village before being taken to a children’s home and hospital.

The witnesses identified several of the accused as participants in grave digging, gatherings, and rituals within Shakahola.

The case continues on Tuesday with more prosecution witnesses expected to testify.