Police on Friday applied before a court in Mombasa seeking to be permitted to detain embattled Pastor Ezekiel Odero for 30 extra days for them to conclude their investigation.
Pastor Ezekiel, who heads the New Life Prayer Centre and Church, was arrested on Thursday over alleged links to more than 100 bodies exhumed from a Shakahola land in Kilifi County.
Police told the court that they were in possession of reliable intelligence that a sizeable number of the cleric’s followers might have died while seeking spiritual assistance from him.
In their application filed on Friday, police linked several deaths reported at Kilifi Police Station in 2022 and 2023 to the wealthy Pastor Ezekiel’s New Life Prayer Centre and Church.
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Police told the court they are investigating the coast-based pastor for murder, abetting suicide, child cruelty, crimes against humanity, radicalization, money laundering and fraud.
“Police collected several burial permits that were issued to several individuals whose names and telephones numbers have been disclosed in these records,” the court papers read.
The Shanzu court ordered he be remanded until Tuesday pending a ruling on the police application to hold him for 30 days to allow them to conclude their investigation into the alleged deaths linked to his church.
Ezekiel was arrested in Mavueni in Kilifi County on Thursday and moved to Mombasa and his church shut down more than 100 of his followers evacuated from the church premises.
The pastor was apprehended by police over his alleged dealings with controversial Kilifi pastor Paul Mackenzie, who has been linked to the brainwashing and starvation death of more than 100 of his followers.
This comes as 11 more bodies were exhumed from the 800-acre land in Shakahola, where Pastor Mackenzie’s church is based, bringing total bodies exhumed in the six-day operation to 109.
