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Pastor Paul Mackenzie (right) with Smart Deri Mwakalama (left) with 29 other accused persons who are charged with the murder of 191 Children in the Shakahola Massacre listen attentively to the prosecution witness Jimmy Mwavita Mganga, in this photo taken on 6th October 2025.
Months before the Shakahola massacre shocked the world, a whistleblower had posted on Facebook about the goings-on in the doomsday cult led by controversial preacher Paul Mackenzie.
Upon publication of the post, Mr Mackenzie sought police assistance to trace the author of the post, which he claimed was defamatory. He was the complainant seeking legal protection, not the accused.
On November 11, 2022, Mr Mackenzie, now accused of masterminding the doomsday cult that claimed more than 450 lives, walked into Malindi Police Station. He sought protection and legal action regarding a Facebook post that he described as defamatory, which had gone viral.
Sergeant Joseph Yator, then attached to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) in Malindi, testified on Friday of last week that Mackenzie visited his office to request assistance in tracing the author of the post.
“Mackenzie told me that a Facebook group called Malindi Kenya had published claims that he was killing people and burying them on his farm,” he told the court, trying Mackenzie and 30 others for killing 191 children between 2020 and 2023 in Shakahola.
As it would later emerge, the author of that post knew more than most Kenyans at the time. She was not an outsider but the daughter of one of Mackenzie’s former senior pastors, an insider who had once lived in the forest before turning away from the cult. Both the pastor and his daughter have since testified as protected witnesses in Mackenzie’s criminal cases.
“After receiving the report, I contacted the author for clarification, but she declined to speak to me. She later claimed that she had received threats from a police officer at Malindi Police Station,” he said.
Locals from Shakahola Centre help dig up graves at Shakaola forest part of the 800 acres linked with cult leader Paul Mackenzie of Good News International Church on June 6, 2023.
Since the author was in Nairobi, Mr Yator said he sought help from a colleague there to trace her and record a statement. The whistleblower had even tagged the DCI in her post.
Defamation suit
Mr Yator said he contacted the administrator of the Facebook group and instructed him to assist the police with information or take down the post when the author declined to cooperate. The administrator complied, and the post was deleted.
“I later advised Mackenzie to consult a lawyer and pursue a defamation suit if the allegations were false,” the officer said. The complaint was recorded at Lango Baya under OB 58/8/11/2022.
That marked the end of the matter. No further action was taken, yet it turned out to be one of the earliest ignored warnings of the Shakahola tragedy.
But four months later, the man who had once sought police protection became the prime suspect in one of Kenya’s worst mass tragedies, accused of brainwashing followers and leading hundreds to their deaths through starvation as the supposed path to “meet Jesus”.
By November 2022, Mackenzie already had a criminal record. He had been arrested several times in Malindi for radical teachings, running an unregistered school (2017), operating an illegal film studio, and inciting the public against the Huduma Namba registration, which he called “satanic” (2019).
As time passed, the same Facebook post dismissed as defamatory proved to be an authentic early whistleblower alert about the mass graves that would later horrify the world.
Evidence presented in court has since revealed a disturbing pattern of police complicity, negligence, and possible protection extended to Mackenzie, with some witnesses claiming the preacher was “untouchable.”
To understand how police failed families desperate to save their kin from Mackenzie’s grip before tragedy struck, one only needs to hear the account of 66-year-old Safari Katana Yaa. He unsuccessfully tried to rescue nine family members, including five children and four grandchildren.
Jackson Safari Katana Yaa, 66, before High Court in Mombasa on October 9,2025 in a case where controversial preacher Paul Mackenzie and 30 others are charged with 191 murder charges over Shakahola deaths.
His eldest daughter lived in Furunzi, Malindi, where she ran a tailoring shop. But by 2017, Mackenzie’s teachings had infiltrated the family. The preacher convinced them that education was sinful. Katana’s son dropped out of school, and the rest abandoned normal life to follow Mackenzie.
State counsel Mohamed Yassir (left) guides Jackson Safari Katana Yaa while giving evidence in murder trial against controversial preacher Paul Mackenzie over the deaths of 191 children in Shakahola forest.
When Katana realised what was happening, he went to Malindi Police Station for help. Officers accompanied him to the church, where his children were found among Mackenzie’s followers. Mackenzie was arrested for radicalisation, and Katana hoped justice would prevail.
Police advice
But his relief was short-lived. After his son was released on the condition that he return to school, Mackenzie’s followers abducted him right outside the court.
“They grabbed my son, put him on a motorbike, and sped off,” Katana said.
When he reported the matter, the police refused to help, telling him to only call them once he found the boy. Left to his own devices, Katana managed to trace two of his children and confined them at home for their safety, following police advice to “do whatever it takes” to stop them from returning to Mackenzie.
But when Mackenzie and two of Katana’s other children stormed his home, the same police who had earlier encouraged him turned against him. They arrested and detained him for three weeks, fining him Sh30,000 for “locking up his children.”
“The police said I had committed an offence. I was locked up in the cells with my other son,” he said.
Katana testified that the following day, Mackenzie and his followers visited the cells, collected the two children he had confined at home, and left him behind. He was never taken to court despite repeatedly asking to be charged.
His wife sold their chickens to raise Sh15,000, which secured his release. As he left the cells for home, he was involved in an accident that crippled his mobility for months, while his children remained under Mackenzie’s control.
Shakahola cult leader Paul Mackenzie (in pink) is pictured with some of his followers at the Shanzu Law Courts in Mombasa County on May 2, 2023.
Even in 2022, when Katana returned to the police for help, he met the same indifference. Officers advised him to “focus on the youngest” since the rest were already lost to Mackenzie’s cult.
His final encounter with the preacher came at Lango Baya Police Station, where Mackenzie boldly appeared with all five of Katana’s children and drove off with them as police watched. Months later, Katana learnt of the Shakahola deaths and knew his worst fears had come true.
With tears streaming down his face in court, the elderly man said he had done everything a father could, but the people he trusted most to protect his family had failed him. The hearing will resume from December 1 to 5.
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