Doomsday cult leader found guilty of mass murder in Kenya as US issues urgent travel warning

A further 28 leaders in his cult were also convicted of murder - all pleaded not guilty.

The US has now issued a travel warning to the country, urging any visitors to reconsider travel.

"Reconsider travel to Kenya due to risk of health, crime, kidnapping, terrorism, unrest, and traffic safety," the US State Department said. "Some areas have increased risk."

The horrific killings were discovered in 2023 after more than 400 bodies were found buried in shallow graves in Shakahola forest near the Kenyan coast.

Burials within Mackenzie's Good News International Church were dubbed "weddings", with those dying being celebrated as "having wedded with Jesus", Justice Diana Mochache said during eight-hour judgement in port city of Mombasa.

Just 26 of the 400 bodies have been identified as many were severely decomposed.

He and other other cult leaders also face a number of other charges, including for terrorism, radicalisation and denying education to children.

Francis Wanje, 62, told Reuters he had lost eight family members to the cult, including two of his grandchildren.

"You find churches everywhere, but they've got ill reasons for the churches," he said.

"So it is good for members of the public to be very careful."

A former taxi driver, Mackenzie founded the Good News International Church in 2003.

Over the next 16 years, the cult grew in popularity, eventually broadcasting sermons and drawing thousands of followers.

According to a former member, he "started attacking other faiths like Muslims and Catholics" as his preaching became "extreme".

He had been on the authorities' radar since 2017 after police raided his compound and found dozens of children living there without attending school.

In 2019, he shut down the main church and took his followers to the Shakahola Forest, promising affordable arable land, but were met with armed militia who enforced the fasting and deaths of followers, Kenya's human rights body found.

Members of the cult lived in mud houses scattered across the forest.

Peter Shukrani, 23, told the BBC his family fell into Mackenzie's grasps when he was just eight years old.

"My mother would throw away all the medicine I was supposed to take because she believe that only God could heal me," he said.

Mackenzie, wearing a striped polo shirt and red trousers, was silent as the judge read out his name.

He will be sentenced on November 6.