Controversial pastor Ezekiel Odero of the New Life Prayer Centre and Church was Thursday released after spending a week in police custody, in in-between court appearances.
Ezekiel was freed by a Mombasa court on an Sh3 million bond and one surety, or an Sh1.5 million cash bail.
The wealthy televangelist was received outside the courtroom by a throng of his followers who chanted songs as they hoisted him up in the air with his lawyer Danstan Omari.
His release comes after the High Court in Mombasa had certified as urgent a matter in which he sought orders to stop the government from freezing his 15 bank accounts.
Lady Justice Olga Sewe directed the pastor to file the papers to the respondents named in the petition and to appear for an inter partes hearing next week.
“Having perused and considered the Notice of Motion dated May 3 2023 together with the averments set out in its Supporting Affidavit, sworn on May 3, 2023 by Ev. Ezekiel Ombok Odero, I am satisfied that the said application is indeed urgent,” Sewe said in court.
“It is hereby ordered that the application be and is hereby certified urgent and the same be served forthwith on the respondents for inter partes hearing on 8th May 2023.”
In his petition, Ezekiel argued that by freezing his accounts the State is infringing on his and his congregation’s freedom of worship while further noting that the threat to freeze his church’s bank accounts is part of an unconventional path the State has allegedly taken to frustrate his ministry.
“The operations of the church, including ongoing construction and development projects within the church premises, will stand paralysed,” read court papers.
He also wanted the court to throw out an earlier ruling that suspended operations at World Evangelism Television, a TV station owned by the pastor.
His lawyers admitted that 15 people died in his church but the deaths were reported at the police station procedurally.
Police told the court at the time the reports were made there was no evidence to suggest criminality but with the emergence of a cult in the area where parishioners have starved to death investigations were ongoing.
He was arrested on Thursday last week over the “mass killing of his followers” and closed his New Life Prayer Centre and Church that lies south of the coastal town of Malindi.
Prosecutors accused have linked him to cult leader pastor Paul Mackenzie who is in custody facing terrorism charges over the deaths of 111 people, many of them children, in what has been dubbed the Shakahola forest massacre.
Postmortem is ongoing on the bodies and so far some have shown the victims were killed.
Police have been searching his 800-acre property located in a forested remote area where dozens of mass graves have been dug out and more than 100 bodies found.
An autopsy on the bodies is ongoing but the reports on completed procedures show some of the deceased people died from starvation, strangulation, and suffocation.
Mackenzie was freed by a lower court this week and rearrested and presented to a higher court where the state applied for more days to conduct investigations around terrorism-related charges.
He is due to appear in court on Friday.
Ezekiel’s parishioners on Thursday turned up outside the court to pray for his release.
He is also facing investigations into links with Mackenzie because the two transacted on the sale of a television channel in
2019 when Mackenzie closed his church and moved with some congregants to his property in the forested area.
