A resident from Mumias in Kakamega County gave a glimpse of how cult leader Paul Mackenzie was able to brainwash and recruit people to his movement and used local police officers to get away with the crime
Speaking to Citizen TV on Wednesday, April 26, Benson Mutimba revealed that the country would not have witnessed such a tragedy if police officers had not colluded with the controversial pastor.
In particular, he identified how police officers frustrated him when Mackenzie radicalised his four children.
“One day my son told me that he went to a crusade in Mombasa and Mackenzie asked him to join his church.
“The pastor brainwashed him by telling him to drop out of school and burn all documents except his birth certificate which he was supposed to take to him,” Mutimba explained Mackenzie’s modus operandi.
Despite much imploring from his father, the boy was adamant about relocating to Kilifi County where the pastor resided.
He burned all his academic records and indefinitely deferred from Kibabii University where he was undertaking undergraduate studies.
“After dropping out of school, the boy took three of his young brothers and fled to Kilifi.
“I made a report to the police and the pastor was arrested. But immediately after he appeared at the police station, things turned against me,” Mutimba detailed.
He explained that police officers from Kilifi came to the defence of the pastor and accused him of trying to get custody of the children illegally.
“The police officers asked me if I had the birth certificates of the children. When I told them that Mackenzie took them, they accused me of trying to steal children from the pastor,” Mutimba painfully recounted noting that he was forced to make a report with the Nairobi Police officers.
After a gruelling back and forth with the authorities, Mutimba rescued two of his four children but his joy was short-lived after one of them died shortly after due to a self-induced hunger strike.
Mutimba believes that his family would still be complete if the police department had not turned a blind eye to the pastor’s dealings.
As of Thursday, April 27, authorities had discovered 95 bodies of people who were forcefully made to starve to death by the pastor who is currently behind bars.
