Kenyan doomsday cult suspects to be hospitalized after hunger strike [Video]

NAIROBI, Kenya –

A Kenyan magistrate Tuesday ordered the main suspect in a doomsday starvation cult and 94 of his followers to receive emergency care after some of the suspects had to be carried into the courtroom to answer manslaughter charges, too frail and weak to “even open their eyes” after an apparent hunger strike.

At the law courts in the coastal town of Mombasa, Chief Magistrate Alex Ithuku directed Paul Mackenzie, his wife Rhoda Maweu and others charged with 238 counts of manslaughter to be escorted to hospital for an immediate doctors’ examination.

The visibly emaciated suspects pleaded not guilty on all counts, which were read out over four and half hours.

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 …