The High Court in Mombasa on Monday found cult leader Paul Mackenzie and 28 co-accused guilty of murdering 191 people at Shakahola forest in Kilifi County between January 2021 and September 2023.
All but one of the victims were children associated with Good News International Ministries.
The verdict was delivered by Lady Justice Diana Mochache in a 1,000-page judgment that took about eight hours.
The prosecution relied on evidence from 120 witnesses, while the defence called nine.
The court found that the church, headquartered at Kurunzi in Malindi, and its 35 branches across Kenya propagated teachings that progressively departed from orthodox Christian doctrine.
Witnesses described a movement that required followers to separate themselves from society and relocate to the wilderness at Shakahola forest.
The settlement occupied approximately 4,860 acres within Chakama Ranch and was divided into biblical "villages", including Galilaya, Judea, Tiro, Bethlehem, Sidoni, Samaria and Sikari.
Evidence established that Mackenzie directed followers to fast to death to "meet Jesus", in a prescribed sequence: children first, followed by youth, women, men and finally Mackenzie and his family.
Those who resisted were to be forced to comply "kwa mangumi na mateke" (through kicks and blows).
Investigations into the church's activities commenced after a witness made a report at Lango Baya Police Station on March 17, 2023, concerning the starvation of the children of a couple who were followers of the church.
Between April and July 2023, exhumations were conducted in four phases, recovering 429 bodies from mass graves. Of these, 190 were children below the age of 16 and one was an adult.
During the trial, the court relied on sermon recordings, forensic transcripts and survivor testimony to establish that Mackenzie and his associate pastors relied on six pillars to radicalise their followers.
The first pillar was denouncing education.
The court found that sermons by the church pastors portrayed education as the work of the Antichrist, teachers as "masters of devil worship", and school attendance as opposition to God.
Followers eventually withdrew their children from school.
The second pillar was denouncing health and medicine.
Sermons described doctors as "wachawi" (witches) and killers, hospitals as the kingdom of Satan, and medicine as the "mark of the beast".
Witnesses described children dying from treatable conditions because their parents refused medical care.
The third pillar was shunning the government.
Good News International Ministries portrayed the government, its laws, identification systems and programmes as instruments of Satan.
It instructed and taught followers to destroy identity documents and cut ties with government institutions.
The fourth pillar was the isolation of the "Wateule" from "Mataifa".
Followers were taught to regard themselves as the elect and everyone else as worldly, corrupt and dangerous.
Followers cut off family relationships and severed all forms of communication or contact.
The fifth pillar was physical exodus to "Kanisa Jangwani".
The court found that Mackenzie and his associate pastors extensively quoted Revelation 12:6 and 12:14 and interpreted the verses to mean that the church must flee into the wilderness.
Shakahola forest was presented as the place prepared by God for the "Wateule".
The sixth pillar involved subversion of parental instinct and forced fasting.
The court found that parents were induced to withhold food and water from their own children until death, in the belief that they were sending them to Jesus.
Resistance was met with beatings, restraint and confinement.
Twelve child survivors who testified in camera under pseudonyms gave evidence of mandatory meetings under the mitola trees where Mackenzie issued the fasting directive.
They said children were denied food and water even though food was available.
Those who attempted to eat, drink or escape were punished through beating, tying and confinement.
The minors said siblings would die, one after another, while their burials were described as "harusi" (weddings), with the deceased celebrated as "shujaa wa imani" (heroes of faith).
They further told the court that the mass graves were flattened to conceal their existence.
Postmortem examinations supervised by Chief Government Pathologist Dr Johansen Oduor attributed the 191 deaths to starvation.
Postmortem reports showed that 72 cases were due to starvation and features consistent with starvation, four were attributed to asphyxia with features of starvation, two were due to starvation with features of asphyxia, one was due to manual neck compression and one was due to traumatic head injury.
In 110 cases, the cause of death was unascertained due to severe decomposition.
Lady Justice Diana Mochache set the sentencing date for Mackenzie and his co-accused for November 6, 2026.
Mackenzie, who was convicted along with 28 associates, insisted that he did not force the victims to starve. The court rejected his position.
Thirty-one accused persons faced 191 counts of murder contrary to sections 203 and 204 of the Penal Code.
The Shakahola tragedy, which captured international headlines for years, remains one of Kenya's deadliest cult-related disasters.
