A Senate committee heard on Tuesday that Pastor Paul Mckenzie went to great efforts to conceal the graves of his disciples who died of starvation.
Mackenzie even planted vegetables on the graves to conceal them, according to Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki, who testified before the Senate Adhoc Committee probing the Shakahola killings.
“Mackenzie had grown crops on some of the graves. There are those you would find kunde and other vegetables grown on them,” he said on Wednesday.
“Other graves were inside houses and that is why it is taking so long to identify all the graves.”
Kindiki was explaining to the committee why it was taking security agencies so long to identify graves.
He had told senators the government has identified 40 new unopened graves in Shakahola.
The CS said security agencies suspect the graves could be holding multiple bodies.
He said a total of 350 bodies have been recovered as of Monday evening since the exercise began.
“We have not exhausted the search for more graves. We, therefore, do not know how long it will take,” he told senators.
He said the slow pace was also a result of security agencies adhering to Geneva Protocols on the processing of mass graves and scenes of crime where atrocities were committed.
