The Director of Public Prosecution has filed a new application seeking a court order to detain Paul Mackenzie and his co-accused for six months.
Assistant DPP Jami Yamina said the period will enable police to conclude investigations into the Shakahola deaths.
“Investigations have remained incomplete after the lapse of an earlier court order that directed further detention of Mackenzie and his co-accused for 47 days,” he said.
In the application, the DPP said government pathologists require at least an additional six months to complete the DNA profiling process in order to conclusively establish the true identity of the exhumed bodies.
“DNA profiling of 429 bodies exhumed from the Shakahola forest is delicate, expensive, hard, and time-consuming,” Yamina said.
The matter will be mentioned on October 12, 2023.
Mackenzie has been in police custody for five months now, facing at least 12 charges including terrorism, murder, counselling and aiding suicide.
Others are; abduction, radicalisation, genocide, crimes against humanity, child cruelty, fraud, and money laundering.
On June 2, after the expiry of the initial 30 days, the DPP and DCI applied for an extension of custodial orders of another 60 days.
Before the court could deliver a ruling on the new application, Mackenzie and his co-accused staged a 10-day hunger strike while in custody.
By THE STAR