The Lower Eastern Times Opening The Third Eye
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The Tononoka Children’s Court on Wednesday heard disturbing testimonies from five witnesses in the trial of controversial preacher Paul Mackenzie and 34 others linked to the Shakahola massacre.
The accused face charges of child torture, cruelty and denial of education. Presiding magistrate Nelly Chepchirchir listened to accounts from police officers, relatives of the accused and a teacher.
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One witness, Dominic Kahindi Mwakudza, told the court that police questioned him about his brother, Felix Katana, who had four children out of school. Katana allegedly claimed education was useless, a stance Mwakudza opposed, even reporting the matter to authorities. The children were later taken in by the children’s department. He added that Katana’s eldest child dropped out of secondary school in Form Two, while the other three left primary school during the Covid-19 period.
Another witness, Anne Kauchi from Malindi, recounted losing two siblings in the Shakahola tragedy. Once a member of Mackenzie’s Good News International Church, she said she left when the preacher declared education evil.
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While she rejected the doctrine, her mother, Judith Farasi, remained devoted and eventually withdrew Kauchi’s younger siblings from school before moving to Shakahola. Kauchi said she last spoke to them in February 2023 after visiting her mother, but months later discovered her mother and sister Elinah were among the 429 victims, confirmed through DNA tests.
Senior Sergeant Cyrus Irungu also testified, saying two men had reported missing relatives thought to be trapped in Shakahola forest, including Emily Wanje, her husband Isaack Ngala and their children.
Acting on the report, officers trekked deep into the forest and reached Ngala’s homestead, where they found an elderly woman with a malnourished boy.
The boy, unrelated to the woman, said his mother had gone to a “wedding” — later understood to mean a funeral. When asked about his siblings, he pointed to a patch of land where he said they had been buried.
The minor was handed over to a relative identified as HGN.
The hearing is still ongoing, with five more witnesses expected to testify.
