Pastor Ezekiel Released
After spending a week in police detention while awaiting court dates, controversial pastor Ezekiel Odero of the New Life Prayer Centre and Church has been freed.
A Mombasa court on Thursday granted Odero his release on a Ksh. 1.5 million cash bail or a Ksh. 3 million bond with one surety.
The affluent televangelist was met outside the courtroom by a crowd of his supporters who screamed “si uchawi, ni maombi” as they lifted him up in the air.
Odero was freed after his application for an injunction to prevent the government from freezing 15 of his bank accounts was designated as urgent by the High Court of Mombasa.
Lady Justice Olga Sewe ordered Odero to serve the petition’s respondents with papers and appear at an inter partes hearing the following week.
Watch; Pastor Ezekiel Odero followers celebrate after his release on bond
In court documents obtained by Citizen Digital, Justice Sewe stated, “I am satisfied that the said application is indeed urgent having perused and considered the Notice of Motion dated 3rd May 2023 together with the averments set forth in its Supporting Affidavit, sworn on 3rd May 2023 by Ev. Ezekiel Ombok Odero.
Read; Pastor Mckenzie Cult
In his appeal, Odero claimed that the State was violating his and his congregation’s right to free exercise of religion by freezing their bank accounts. He also claimed that the State was trying to thwart his ministry in an unusual way by threatening to freeze the financial accounts of his church.
In addition, he requested that the court reverse a previous decision that had shut down the pastor’s TV station, World Evangelism Television.
The New Life Prayer Centre and Church, which is located south of the seaside town of Malindi, was shut down after Odero was detained on Thursday of last week for the “mass killing of his followers”.
Prosecutors accused him of having ties to cult leader Paul Nthenge Mackenzie, who is being held on terrorist charges in connection with the killings of over 100 people, many of whom were children, in what has been nicknamed the “Shakahola forest massacre.”
Pastor Ezekiel Biography
