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A Kenyan pastor has been convicted on 191 murder charges after he forced followers to starve their children and themselves so they would die and have an opportunity to enter heaven and be with Jesus.

Pastor Paul Mackenzie was convicted alongside 28 others who helped run a sect connected to Mackenzie’s Good News International Church in coastal southeast Kenya.

A judge said in her ruling Monday that MacKenzie and his helpers and guards controlled a system in which religious teachings and a church hierarchy were used to enforce “deadly fasting” on followers after they set up a community in a forest.

The murder charges involve the deaths of 190 children and one adult. Mackenzie and others also face separate manslaughter, terrorism and child torture charges in the deaths of more than 230 others. He has denied all the charges, saying he didn’t force his followers to starve themselves.…