The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has filed a fresh request for the court to order the detention of Paul Mackenzie and his co-accused for six months.
Assistant DPP Jami Yamina stated that this period would allow the police to conclude their investigations into the Shakahola deaths.
“The investigation is still incomplete following the failure of the initial court order that directed the further detention of Mackenzie and his co-accused for 47 days,” she said.
In this application, the DPP argued that government pathologists need at least an additional six months to complete the process of DNA analysis to fully ascertain the true identities of the exhumed bodies.
“The DNA analysis of the 429 bodies recovered in the Shakahola forest is challenging, costly, time-consuming, and complicated,” Yamina stated.
The case will be mentioned on October 12, 2023.
Mackenzie has been in police custody for the past five months, facing a minimum of 12 charges, including terrorism, murder, counseling, and aiding suicide.
Other charges include kidnapping, extremism, genocide, crimes against humanity, child cruelty, fraud, and money laundering.
On June 2, after the initial 30 days of detention expired, the DPP and DCI requested an extension of the detention orders for an additional 60 days.
Before the court could rule on this new application, Mackenzie and his co-accused went on a 10-day hunger strike while in custody.
