Kenyan Court Rules Pastor Accused of Starving His Congregation Is Mentally Fit for Trial

Paul Mackenzie Nthenge, center, is escorted into the High Court at Malindi, Kenya, on Feb. 6, 2024, with other alleged accomplices. (RNS photo/Fredrick Nzwili)

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By the late 1990s, he was driving a taxi in Malindi and attending a local Baptist church. But in 2003, having announced that God had called him, he set up the Good News International Church, whose stated aim was to nurture the faithful ahead of Jesus’ second coming.

In 2017, he launched a YouTube Channel, Times TV, which he used to castigate institutional education, modern medicine and other practices, such as wearing wigs, as demonic. He claimed he had the power to heal.

About the same time, he established a school at the church compound and was later arrested on charges of radicalizing children and telling them not to attend school, saying education was not stipulated in the Bible.

“We were happy that one of us had seen the light and some of us joined his ministry, until he started preaching outside the Bible,” Julius Charo, a taxi driver who worked with Nthenge, told The Standard.

In 2019, Nthenge moved to Shakahola, two hours inland, to flee the “approaching apocalypse” and instructed his followers to move to his ranch, where he named certain areas after biblical cities, such as Sidon, Jericho, Galilee and Bethlehem. He told his friends that he was going to start farming in the forest.

Exactly how he prevailed on his followers to starve themselves is still a mystery. According to investigators, children were to die first, followed by women and men. At least 190 children starved or were suffocated to death, the investigators say.

“It’s an abomination,” said Abdullah Kheir, a university lecturer in several Kenyan universities and a consultant on Islamic affairs. “Such happens in all religions, but no religion allows such. Sometimes, it has no relation with religion.”

This article originally appeared here.

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fnzwili@outreach.com'
Fredrick Nzwili
Fredrick Nzwili is a journalist for Religion News Service.

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