Pastor Paul Mackenzie employed armed gangs with blunt objects to murder some of his members who took too long to die and those who altered their minds throughout the fasting process, according to the Interior Minister.
While appearing before the Senate ad hoc committee, Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki said that the armed gangs built structures next to the burial sites where they had a menu of well-balanced diets while they watched over followers starving to death.
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Autopsies on the first 112 bodies showed that most of the victims died of starvation, probably after following the preaching of Paul Nthenge Mackenzie, a self-proclaimed pastor of the International Church of the Good News, who advocated fasting “to meet Jesus.
Some of the victims, however, including children, were strangled, beaten or suffocated, the head of forensic operations, Johansen Oduor, said last week.
Autopsies also revealed that there were “missing organs on some of the bodies,” the Criminal Investigation Department said in a court document, referring to “well-coordinated trafficking in human organs involving several actors.
Death toll has hit 240 after two human skeletons were recovered from the forest on Monday.
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The Senate Committtee was in shock when they saw one of the bodies wrapped up in a Maasai bedsheet.
“We want to say that even as we are living today, some more bodies were found. We have come face-to-face with the death of our people. We have come face-to-face with skeletons,” said Mr Mungatana.
The team that is tasked with looking into the Shakahola mass murders also toured Bethlehem village, an area noted to be Mackenzie’s headquarters.
“We have also visited a mass grave that, as we are informed, was carrying about 67 people who have been exhumed, and that particular place was called Bethlehem,” added Mr Mungatana.
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Other areas they managed to tour included Galilaya, where Mackenzie’s house is located.
