MOMBASA, Kenya, May 15 — The High Court in Mombasa has dismissed an application by Pastor Ezekiel Odero seeking to unfreeze his bank accounts and television channel.
High Court Judge Olga Sewe the application to allow the preacher based in Kilifi’s Mavueni area access to over fifteen bank accounts was entirely misconceived.
She refrained from reviewing orders given by a Magistrate Court in Nairobi.
The High Court also dismissed an application to have Odero’s TV license restored, saying the petitioners ought to have exhausted all the legal channels with Communication Authority (CA), the regulator, before coming to court.
Odero is accused of links to a starvation cult in Kilifi’s Shakahola forest where over 210 bodies have been unearthed from mass graves.
He was arrested following the detention of Paul Mackenzie, who led a sect registered as the Good News International Church.
Odero, himself a high-profile and wealthy televangelist, is being investigated on a raft of charges including murder, aiding suicide, abduction, radicalization, crimes against humanity, child cruelty, fraud and money laundering.
Prosecutors said they have credible information linking the corpses exhumed at Shakahola to the deaths of several “innocent and vulnerable followers” from Odero’s New Life Prayer Centre and Church.
