Story By: Ana Marjanovic, Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News
Three alleged members of a demonic cult are facing the death penalty for killing a Catholic priest who had taken time off to look after his mother.
The body of Fr Michael Maingi Kyengo, 43, was found buried on the banks of a river in a shallow grave in Makima, Embu County at the beginning of October.
After a one-month-long investigation, the three were arrested, and the trial has now started at Embu High Court in Kenya.
The three accused, Michael Muthinji, Kavivya Mwangangi and Solomon Mutava, whose ages were not given, are accused of abducting the parish priest of Thatha, which is a diocese of Machakos, on 8th October before slitting his throat and dumping his body in a shallow grave on a riverbed in Embu County.
A motive for the murder was not given but money had been taken from his bank account. Police said that one of the suspects had shown them where the body was buried in a sack with its throat slit. The police also found the murder weapon in the bathroom of one of the suspects home.
The Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) stated that they were also investigating whether the suspected murder for money might have been part of an organised gang after they found evidence in Mwangangi’s rented home linking them to the ‘Secret Society Cult’, rumoured to offer cash for kidnapping and murder.
The DCI confirmed that a “filled in application form to join the illuminatiam (sic) Cult in September 2018 was recovered at Mwangangi’s rented house.”
Little is known of the organisation that was described as “anti-Christian” and reported to be working with demonic forces.
The East African newspaper cited a 2016 report that said: “cultism has been a serious social problem facing the Nigerian society, with rising cases of cult-related killings”.
They added: “Cult rivalry is at the centre of most homicide committed by cult members. Cult groups are always in a constant battle for supremacy and control over turf. Many young people are lured into joining a cult because of peer pressure, the desire to belong and to seek for protection.’’
The paper blames the proliferation of cult groups in the region on the “fall in moral standard, structural imbalances in our society and near-total collapse of the Nigerian socio-economic system.”
Earlier DCI detectives had linked the death of the son of the University of Nairobi lecturer Hannah Khahugani Inyama to the same cult. The decomposing body of Emmanuel Solomon Inyama, which was wrapped in a blanket, was found on the floor of their living room, with his mother on the floor of the kitchen praying.
At the moment the three suspects are being detained in Embu prison.
After it was opened the case was once more postponed until this Thursday after the prosecution failed to deliver the necessary documents to the defence lawyers.
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