Witnesses: How Makenzi lured victims to death

Shakahola cult leader Paul Makenzi. [File, Standard] Suspected Shakahola cult leader Paul Makenzi lured victims into the forest, promising them free land, witnesses told a court in Shanzu, Mombasa County. Witnesses in a case where Makenzi and 94 others have been charged with terrorism and radicalization told Senior Principal Magistrate Leah Juma that the victims were gifted with a few acres of land. Some of the followers of Makenzi's Good News International Church purchased the land at a throwaway price and intended to build their homes there, the court heard. Families that tried to trace their kin inside the forest were met with hostility. According to 47-year-old Kadenge Sirya, who testified on Friday, a gang of armed men attacked them and injured some of his family members when they tried to trace his brother inside villages inside the forest. The said villages were christened biblical names such as Bethlehem Judea and Jericho, among others. Sirya, his young brother Evans Kolombe, his wife Josephine Mbodze, and his children hid inside the forest for five years. "Land was a bait to lure victims into the forest. Those who defied Makenzi's teaching lost their portion. We were not allowed to go to Babel (Malindi Town) without his (Makenzi's) permission," said another witness. Sirya recounted to the magistrate how his brother joined the cult and stopped his two children from going to school, terming it ungodly. He said despite being a college graduate and having a successful business in the construction industry, Evans abandoned his life and went to Shakahola with his family. "Before attending pastor Makenzi's Good News International Church, Evans was a focused person, right from high school and college where he pursued clearing and forwarding course, which I paid for and he was focused on his business as a contractor," said Sirya. According to Sirya, also those who starved to death were children of an ex-GSU officer who had followed Makenzi to Shakahola. Sirya said in 2018, Kolombe removed his two children from school despite being advised against it by his brothers and parents. "I called my brother to my home and asked him why he had done so, upon which he responded that education was ungodly and not part of God's plan and further informed me that his children would not go to school," said Sirya. Mbodze said if the children went to school, then it would be Kolombe who would prepare them for it. "On November 15, 2018, I texted Mr Migosi, a children's officer, requesting his assistance in getting back my brother's children to school. However, despite Migosi's efforts, Kolombe and his wife did not take the children back to school," said Sirya. Sirya said that before his brother's relocation and disappearance to Shakahola, he fellowshiped at Makenzi's Furunzi church in Malindi. He said that his brother Evans was arrested over the deaths at Shakahola kwa Makenzi. "I have since visited him although I do not know the whereabouts of his wife or children whom I have come to learn should be numbering six because he got more children during the period he was away," said Sirya. He said the brother informed him the children and his wife were safe where he had relocated them in November 2023. In 2020, Sirya said, he was informed that his brother had relocated with his family to Shakahola forest in Chakama location where they were settled on a farm. Sirya said that in March 2023, he learned through the radio, that followers of Makenzi were being forced to fast until they died, so they could go to heaven. He said that his cousin Humphery Ngonyo informed him that his brother's two children had died due to starvation and were buried in the forest. Sirya narrated how, while in the company of Humphrey, his younger brother Michael Masha, and Citizen TV journalist Francis Mtalaki, they were confronted by armed men as they tried to interview the former GSU officer Isaac Ngala outside his house at Shakahola. "As the interviews progressed, a group of men started approaching us from different places in the forest with machetes, clubs, bows, and arrows. About 45 minutes later, 100 armed men were surrounding us," said Sirya. He noted although the ex-GSU officer was not around, they found two grave sites on the side of the house. Sirya said the crowd became rowdy as they proceeded to his brother's (Evans) house.

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