An unpopular self-styled preacher who claimed he could assist infertile couples conceive “miracle babies” through prayer was exonerated by a Kenyan court on Monday, claiming a lack of prosecution evidence.
To support his claims, Gilbert Deya, a former stonemason who immigrated to London from Kenya in the mid-1990s, was charged with kidnapping five kids between 1999 and 2004.
The 86-year-old was declared innocent by Senior Principal Magistrate Robison Ondieki after determining that the prosecution had not provided sufficient evidence to connect Deya to the accusations.
Following a ten-year legal battle to remain in the UK, the preacher, whose Gilbert Deya Ministries has churches in London, Birmingham, Nottingham, Liverpool, and Manchester, was extradited from Britain to Kenya in 2017.
Deya and his wife Mary asserted that their prayers might help post-menopausal and infertile women conceive naturally within four months.
Prosecutors asserted that the “miracle babies” were actually stolen, primarily from Nairobi’s impoverished areas.
Deya’s lawyer, John Swaka, told AFP:
“The charges were trumped up and could not stand in a court of law. He is delighted and very happy. He has no squabbles with anyone and will go back to serving the Lord”.
When a British coroner determined that a baby named Sarah, who had passed away at the age of three weeks, was unrelated to either of her alleged parents, Deya’s claims first came to light in a 2004 case.
The mother moved to Nairobi after being told she was infertile and claimed to have given birth there, but DNA tests revealed otherwise.
For the first occasion in eight centuries, an English coroner had to render a formal judgement on whether a miracle had occurred in the case.
Deya asserts that in 1992, the United Evangelical Churches of America ordained him as an archbishop. Before relocating to Britain, he was well-liked in Kenya as a televangelist.
Kenya, a country with a significant Christian population, has about 4 000 churches, some of which are led by so-called pastors without any formal theological training.
The April discovery of deaths connected to a Kenyan cult that engaged in starving to “meet Jesus Christ“ raised concerns about the necessity for tighter control over religious organisations in the country of East Africa.
In the Shakahola forest in coastal Kenya, around 400 dead have already been discovered. Cult leader and purported preacher Paul Nthenge Mackenzie has been in police custody since mid-April.
