A Kenyan court on Thursday charged the leader of a starvation cult with child torture and cruelty over the deaths of more than 400 of his followers.
Paul Nthenge Mackenzie and 38 other suspects pleaded not guilty to charges including beating and deliberately starving children, according to court documents from the Mombasa court seen by AFP news agency.
Mackenzie, who has already been charged with terrorism and manslaughter, is alleged to have incited his followers to starve to death in order to "meet Jesus" in a case that provoked horror across the world.
A court in the coastal city of Malindi is scheduled to rule on February 6 if the self-proclaimed pastor is mentally fit to face additional charges of murder.
Bodies in forest
He was arrested last April after bodies were discovered in the Shakahola forest near the Indian Ocean.
Autopsies revealed that the majority of the 429 victims had died of hunger.
But others, including children, appeared to have been strangled, beaten or suffocated.
The charge sheet from the Tononoka Children's Court in the port city of Mombasa alleged that the offences occurred between 2020 and 2023 in the Shakahola forest where Mackenzie's cult gathered.
Denied food
The accused "wilfully and intentionally" denied food to children as young as six years old and whipped others with thorny sticks, the court documents stated.
Apart from abuse and neglect, some children were also removed from school and denied their right to an education, it added.
Mackenzie has also pleaded not guilty to terrorism and manslaughter.
A largely Christian nation, Kenya has struggled to regulate unscrupulous churches and cults that dabble in criminality.
The grisly case, dubbed the "Shakahola forest massacre", led the govern ment to flag the need for tighter control of fringe denominations.
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