MOMBASA, Oct. 19 -- Children were the first made to fast at Shakahola, and guards prevented followers from escaping, a Kenyan judge found on Monday, according to prosecutors, as she convicted the preacher Paul Nthenge Mackenzie and 28 co-accused of 191 murders.

Lady Justice Diana Kavedza delivered the judgment at the Mombasa High Court. The deaths, between January 2021 and September 2023 in Kilifi County, came from an organised system in which religious teaching and an established hierarchy directed and enforced deadly fasting, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions said in a statement posted to X. Pathologists in Malindi began autopsies of the victims in 2023, and the statement says bodies were exhumed from graves across seve...