Deaths by faith or force? Lawyer's debate on Shakahola deaths

Hussein Khalid, Chief Executive Officer at  Vocal Africa and Advocate Lawrence Obonyo during an interview on Spice fm on August 7.

As the country struggles to find answers to the tragedy that hit Shakahola in 2023, detectives from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations have again identified another grave site at Kwa Binzaro, Kilifi County.

The narrations of religious radicalisation leading to the deaths of adults and children are similar in both situations.

Advocate Lawrence Obonyo, however, raises a question that has been a bone of contention in the corridors of justice: who is to blame for the deaths?

Obonyo, who has been representing the controversial preacher Paul Mackenzie of the Shakahola massacre, says the legal team has spent most of their time trying to analyse whether the deaths were induced or caused intentionally by certain individuals.

“The question is whether those deaths were induced, how and if capabilities can be in certain individuals,” Obonyo said in an interview on Spice FM.

According to Obonyo, the victims died, and several death certificates have been issued.

“The question now is, how would you hold someone else responsible for a decision you make on your own?” he asked.

He cited that this could be one of the challenges that the Office of the Directorate of Criminal Investigations is struggling to unravel, barring the testimonies that some victims were forced to starve to death, as others did out of free will.

He represents 92 accused persons, of whom he says the majority are on murder and offences against children.

The lawyer has blamed the government for failing to carry out its mandate in protecting citizens.

Hussein Khalid, Chief Executive Officer at  Vocal Africa, also shared the same sentiments on the failure of the national security team.

“When we raised the alarm, it took the police three weeks to arrive despite the early signals. By that time, there were a number of followers who had already left that area because they were told that the police were coming,” Khalid says.

“The state security officers failed; there is no justification that the place is vast, you are a government, you should have been able to tell.”

Revealing testimonies of the victims, Khalid said some mothers gave the first account of how their children were taken to their deaths before their eyes as they were hand tied by religious practice against helping them, as some induced pain to fasten the deaths.

Obonyo says, “The guardian or parent has the capacity to make decisions for the child. Parents have to bear responsibility for decision that affects the child”.