Saturday, April 29, 2023 –Controversial preacher Ezekiel Odero of the New Life Prayer Centre and Church has hired the services of top Nairobi lawyers Danstan Omar and Cliff Ombeta.
Homenews.co.ke has, on Saturday April 29, learnt that the Mombasa-based pastor and founder of a popular church had sought services of the two lawyers who have since joined his defence team in Mombasa.
The pastor is facing criminal charges including mass killing in his church after morgue officials reported that they have been receiving unexplained bodies from the church.
The televangelist was arraigned in court on Friday April 28 morning where it was ruled that he be detained until May 2.
Speaking when they addressed a Press briefing outside Port Police Station where the pastor is being held, the lawyers insisted their client is innocent.
Lawyer Danstan Omari said only 15 People have died in the Church since it started more than a year ago.
He said their client is not linked in any way to the deaths of persons in Shakahola and that anything being said about him is utter witch-hunt.
Now a wealthy televangelist who draws huge crowds, Odero’s church south of the coastal town of Malindi can seat 40,000 people and comes complete with a hotel for followers “from across the globe.”
To his followers, Ezekiel Ombok Odero is a highly gifted spiritual leader who can cure HIV using “holy water.”
To his detractors, he is little more than a sophisticated peaceful conman preying on Kenya’s poor flock to amass family wealth using the Bible.
Kenyan police arrested Odero on Thursday April 27 over the “mass killing of his followers”. The police also closed his New Life Prayer Centre and Church, just days after the discovery of dozens of bodies linked to another church run by his counterpart, Paul Mackenzie.
