The State has been given two weeks to charge Pastor Paul Mackenzie and his 28 other co-accused persons, or the court will release them on bail or bond terms.
Mackenzie, who was first arrested on April 15, has already spent 269 days in custody, while his co-accused have also spent more than 200 days behind bars.
Despite their confinement, the police are yet to conclude the investigation into the deaths of over 429 people exhumed from the Shakahola forest.
Mackenzi and the co-accused are facing at least 12 charges, including terrorism, murder, counselling and aiding suicide, abduction, radicalization, genocide, crimes against humanity, child cruelty, fraud, and money laundering.
However, they are yet to be charged officially.
On September 18, last year, the State made an application to continue holding Mackenzie and his associates for yet another six months to be able to complete their investigations.
However, the application was not heard immediately because of intervening factors, and the ruling also had to be delayed because of excusable circumstances, according to Shikanda.
Since the September 18 application, Mackenzie and his co-accused have been in custody for 117 days.
On his five-page ruling on Tuesday afternoon, Shikanda said:
“In my view, that is sufficient time within which the pending investigations ought to have been completed.”
“The application appears to have been determined by the passage of time. For that reason, I do not think it will be necessary for the court to engage in an academic exercise of determining the merits or demerits of the application,” he added.
Shikanda directed the State to continue holding the respondent in custody for only a further 14 days to pave the way for any processing if a decision to charge is made.
“If no decision to charge the respondents will have been made after the expiry of such period (14 days), the court will consider releasing the respondents from custody on terms that the court will determine,” he ruled.
However, the Shanzu Court Magistrate said he is aware of the fact that in the event the State decides to charge the respondents, it would require time and facilities to process the charges and eventually present the respondents in court.
“This is owing to the number of the respondents and the possible charges that they may face,” he said.
According to Shikanda, this is the longest pre-charge detention in the country's history following the promulgation of the Constitution of Kenya, in 2010.
He said the record is clear as to how long the respondents have been in custody pending completion of the investigations.
“It has been a long journey that must come to an end, at least for this phase,” he said.
The matter will be mentioned on January 23 for further orders.