Reuters
A former taxi driver-turned-cult-leader was charged by a Kenyan court on Tuesday with the murders of 191 children who were starved to death along with hundreds of others told to fast in preparation for the end of the world.
Paul MacKenzie Nthenge, the founder of the Good News International Church, was arrested last April and charged with terrorism-related crimes, manslaughter, and torture in connection with what has been dubbed the Shakahola Forest Massacre. More than 400 people swept up into the cult were found dead in a remote area of the Shakahola forest last year, with most of them having succumbed to starvation while prosecutors said others appeared to have been beaten or strangled.
Nthenge is accused of ordering his followers to starve themselves and their children in anticipation of the apocalypse, allegedly telling worshippers they had to starve in order to “meet Jesus.”