The suspects in a Kenyan doomsday cult are ordered to be hospitalized after a hunger strike

By TOM ODULA
Associated Press

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — A magistrate has ordered the main suspect in a doomsday starvation cult and 94 of his followers to receive emergency care after some of the suspects were carried into the court room to answer manslaughter charges frail and weak to “even open their eyes” from an apparent hunger strike. Chief Magistrate Alex Ithuku directed Mackenzie, his wife Rhoda Maweu and others charged with 238 counts of manslaughter, escorted to hospital for an immediate doctors’ examination. Doomsday cult leader Paul Mackenzie and some of his followers have been blamed for the deaths of 429 members of his Good News International Church, many of whom are believed to have starved themselves in the belief that by doing so they would meet Jesus Christ before the world ends.