But last year, more bodies were discovered in the remote village of Binzaro, around 30 kilometres (20 miles) from Shakahola along the Indian Ocean coast, suggesting the same cult had continued to operate even after Mackenzie’s arrest.

The public prosecutions office said in a statement on X that it had charged Mackenzie and others with “organized criminal activity, two counts of radicalization (and) two counts of facilitating commission of a terrorist act” in relation to the “deaths of at least 52 people at Kwa Binzaro area in Chakama, Kilifi County.”

The defendants have again pleaded not guilty and the next hearing in the case is due on March 4.

“They are alleged to have promoted an extreme belief system by preaching against the authority of the government, adopted an extreme belief system against authority, and facilitated the commission of a terrorist act,” the prosecutor’s office said.

Efforts to regulate religion in the majority-Christian country have been fiercely opposed in the past as undermining constitutional guarantees of the division between Church and state.

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