A Kenyan man in police custody handed away ten days after embarking on a starvation strike following allegations that he performed a job within the mass deaths of members of a Christian hunger cult, a prosecutor on Wednesday introduced, per Reuters.
The deceased, Joseph Buyuka, in addition to the alleged cult chief and pastor of Good Information Worldwide Church, Paul Mackenzie, had been a part of 28 different individuals who had been arrested and detained after the our bodies of tons of of followers had been exhumed from the church grounds in Shakahola forest. Over 300 our bodies have to date been discovered.
“The police consider that these people… performed vital roles within the offences resulting in the deaths and unlawful disposal of our bodies in Shakahola (forest),” court docket papers said in reference to Bukuka and different suspects arrested in reference to the mass deaths.
Senior prosecution counsel, Jami Yamina, instructed a court docket within the Kenyan metropolis of Mombasa that Buyuka’s loss of life a number of days in the past was a results of “issues from starvation strike and hunger, however we are going to await postmortem report.” She added, “Two different suspects … have additionally been taken in poor health. Police consider it’s associated to their starvation strike.”
Paul Mackenzie, a self-styled pastor, is accused of creating his followers, together with kids, starve to loss of life so they may go to heaven. Autopsies carried out on the deceased followers revealed that their primary reason behind loss of life was hunger, whereas others had been strangled, crushed, or suffocated.
Mackenzie is at the moment being held with out bail after he surrendered to authorities in April. The suspects charged in reference to the mass deaths are, nonetheless, but to enter their pleas.
In Could, the East African nation’s inside minister highlighted worries over among the rescued members’ refusal to eat. He additionally stated one of many followers had handed away, Reuters reported.
Buyuka’s loss of life additionally comes after Kenyan authorities introduced tried suicide fees towards 65 rescued members of the Christian cult after they rejected meals at a rescue middle that was holding them.
British colonizers made tried suicide a legal offense earlier than Kenya’s independence in 1963, per the BBC. Although England repealed the legislation over 60 years in the past, its former East African colony nonetheless enforces it. Nonetheless, campaigners in Kenya have been advocating for the annulment of the legislation of their nation.
