A prosecution witness on Tuesday gave harrowing testimony on how preacher Paul Mackenzie allegedly distorted scripture to push his followers into the fatal Shakahola fast.
Appearing before Shanzu Law Courts under Principal Magistrate Leah Juma, the witness recounted that Mackenzie often referred to a passage in the Book of Revelation about a pregnant woman hiding in the wilderness for 1,260 days to escape a seven-headed dragon.
The court heard that Mackenzie redefined the verse to suit his own agenda, presenting his church as the woman, the congregation as the “chosen ones,” and the wilderness as the remote Shakahola forest in Kilifi County, where his followers settled after he shut down his Furunzi church.
According to the testimony, Mackenzie claimed the dragon symbolized Satan and worldly powers, while the child in the vision represented the believers’ faith.
He interpreted the 1,260 days as three and a half years, a prophetic timeline he linked to the end of the world. From 2020, when his followers moved to Shakahola, Mackenzie allegedly urged them to fast in order to “beat the clock” before the rapture.
A pastor identified only as George is said to have reinforced Mackenzie’s apocalyptic message.
The hearing also revisited a 2023 application to extend the detention of Mackenzie’s associates. At the time, Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions Jami Yamina argued that the suspects and others at the Sajahanad Rescue Centre in Kilifi were not genuinely on hunger strike, but were fasting as part of Mackenzie’s countdown to heaven.
The court subsequently ordered their transfer to prison custody to enable medical intervention including force feeding, to save their lives. On Tuesday, Yamina remarked that the new testimony “appears to confirm that the followers were racing against the 1,260-day countdown.”
Another witness, identified as E.I., gave a personal account of the pressure within the cult. He told the court that his own father urged him to join the fast, warning that his peers had already “gone to God” while he risked being lost to “babeli,” a place where Satan would rejoice in his downfall.
E.I. further alleged that Mackenzie resorted to threats, at one point vowing to “force people to heaven through blows and kicks” if they defied his instructions.
The testimony adds to mounting evidence that Mackenzie used fear, distorted prophecy and coercion to drive his flock into starvation in what has become one of Kenya’s deadliest cult tragedies.
