Bishop Gilbert Deya charged in the UK with rape of minors
Bishop Gilbert Deya will be taken to a UK court on November 8 to answer to charges of rape.
On October 25, he appeared at a London’s magistrate’s court and was charged with three counts of rape and one count of attempted rape. Deya, 61, was further charged with one count of sexual assault against a 14-year-old girl.
His wife, Mary, has been barred from the UK after she was convicted in Kenya of smuggling children to hand over to female church members in the UK with the intention of claiming her husband had performed miracles.
Several children were taken by UK social service officers after DNA tests proved they were not the children of the church members.
Deya was due to be deported back to Kenya back in 2007, when he managed to claim asylum and stayed in England.
The Deya church’s theology upholds the obsessive laying or sometimes pressing of the hands by the preacher to “transfer” healing powers to the person needing prayer. They are however often performed without the person’s consent and people are also forced into laborious processions which Deya claims will rid them of evil spirits.
Another controversy is on the use of so-called anointing oil, which Deya instructs people to apply onto their bodies for protection from evil spirits.
An uneducated man with no papers of writ, he rarely preaches from the Bible and relies on what he says is the Holy Spirit leading him.
At the height of investigations into his miracle baby claims in 2005, Deya began claiming that he had discovered new books, which must be regarded as scripture and added to the Bible.
He claims his church has more than 35,000 members.
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