Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) officers on Wednesday afternoon arrested the mother of controversial preacher Paul Nthenge Mackenzie and rescued eight children she is alleged to have withdrawn from school and subjected to fasting.

The officers stormed the home of Anastasia Mumwele Mackenzie, located next to the closed Good News International Church in Malindi town, and escorted both the children and their grandmother to the Malindi Police Station.

Investigators said preliminary reports indicated that the children, aged between six and fourteen, were being forced to fast three days a week, though the allegations are yet to be verified after a medical examination.

The operation was led by Homicide Director Martin Nyuguto and Malindi Sub-County Children’s Officer Sebastian Muteti, who, together with other officers, raided Mackenzie’s Furunzi residence in Malindi town and found the children with Mrs. Mackenzie, despite the fact that they were supposed attendance to be in school.

 Nyuguto explained that the police action followed a report from Mackenzie’s firstborn son, Dan Mackenzie, who informed officers that the children were being kept at their grandmother’s house instead of attending classes.

He added that five of the children belonged to Mackenzie, while the remaining three were believed to be those of close relatives – a brother and a daughter.

Dan told confirmed to journalists that he had reported the matter to the police because he believed the children should be in school instead of staying at home.

“My grandmother has been taken because the officers found the children not going to school and were still in the controversial religion in which they believe in fasting to go to heaven,” Dan told journalists.

This incident adds to the preacher’s mounting legal troubles. Mackenzie, leader of the Good News International Church, is at the centre of the Shakahola massacre case, in which hundreds of bodies were exhumed from shallow graves in Kilifi County.

Prosecutors accuse him of radicalising followers by forcing them to abandon education and healthcare and of orchestrating mass starvation in the forest.

He faces terrorism and radicalisation charges, alongside murder and manslaughter cases in Malindi and Mombasa courts.

 by Abukar Osman and Emmanuel Masha