Ugandan Cult Members Arrested in Kenya

CNN News, April 1, 2000

NAIROBI (April 1) XINHUA - Police in Eldoret city in western Kenya have arrested 13 Ugandan suspects believed to have participated in the Ugandan mass suicide which is now regarded as mass murder.

The suspects are among those wanted by Ugandan authorities for the death, the East African Standard newspapers Saturday quoted the police as saying. Eldoret police boss John Maritim said the suspects were arrested following an alert by residents claiming to have fought a pack of dogs over a corpse buried in a shallow grave.

He said that the police are holding the suspects awaiting instructions from the Ugandan counterparts.

Last month, at Kanungu village in western Uganda, over 500 members of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God were burned to death in a church.

Among the suspects arrested in Eldoret was a woman suspected to be Theresa Kibwetere, the wife of the cult leader Joseph Kibwetere, the paper said, adding that documents recovered from the woman indicate that some of their recruits are Kenyan secondary and college students.