Kenya: Controversial preacher found guilty of running 'unlicensed media'

Already accused of ordering his followers to starve to meet Jesus. Paul Mackenzie is the target of a new case. The Kenyan preacher was found guilty on Friday of operating a studio and distributing films without a license through his Times Television channel.

He will be sentenced on December 1 and could face up to five years in prison.

The preacher has been in custody for more than six months, since his arrest in April following the discovery of hundreds of bodies in mass graves in a forest area on his 800-acre property in coastal Kilifi County.

On Thursday, prosecutors requested that Mackenzie be held for another six months to allow police to complete their investigation, which includes searching for dozens of people still missing.

Rescue ship saves 118 migrants in Mediterranean

The crew of the private rescue vessel Life Ship rescued dozens of people in international waters in the Maltese search and rescue zone between the evening of Wednesday 8 November and the morning of Thursday 9 November.

The Life Ship, run by the nonprofit group Emergency, carried out two different operations, one at dawn to rescue 41 people in a fiberglass boat and another at night to rescue 77 migrants in a wooden boat.

According to an Emergency press release, four unaccompanied minors, including a girl, were among those rescued.

The migrants were Eritrean, Ethiopian, Sudanese, Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Syrian, Egyptian and Palestinian.

According to the Italian Interior Ministry, more than 145,000 migrants arrived in Italy by sea in 2023.

The rescues took place the same week that Italian Prime Minister Giorgia signed an agreement with Albania to set up a detention center in an Albanian port and send there 3,000 migrants a month rescued by ships.