CONTROVERSIAL Kenyan televangelist Gilbert Deya, who claimed he created miraculous pregnancies, has died in a road crash.
Police told local media that Deya died on the spot on Tuesday evening after his vehicle was involved in an accident with a university bus and another vehicle near the town of Kisumu in western Kenya.
At least 30 other people were reportedly injured, including a person identified as his wife and a passenger in his vehicle, and 15 students in the bus.
Deya, who ran a church in London, rose to infamy in the early 2000s, following his claim that he could help infertile couples conceive “miracle” babies through prayer.
A former stonemason-turned evangelist, Deya moved from Kenya to London in the mid-1990s, where he founded Gilbert Deya Ministries, a registered charity with branches across the UK and Africa.
He was known for his charismatic preaching style and claimed to have been consecrated as an archbishop by a US evangelist in 1992.
His ministries later faced multiple investigations by the UK authorities for alleged mismanagement and legal violations, including selling olive oil which were falsely claiming to have healing properties.
He was once described by UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy, then an MP, as a “modern-day snake-oil salesman who has conned and betrayed his vulnerable congregation”.
At his church, desperate women, some past their menopause and others who were unable to conceive, would be convinced that they would become pregnant through prayer.
But the babies were always “delivered” in backstreet clinics in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi. The prosecution said the babies were stolen from poor Kenyan families.
In 2011, his then wife Mary Deya was jailed after being found guilty of stealing a baby from the main referral hospital in Nairobi and falsely stating she had given birth to the baby.
Deya would later tell a court that they had divorced after she had been charged, saying she had “tarnished” his name.
Recent videos from the YouTube page of Gilbert Deya Ministries appear to show him announcing that he has a new wife, Diana Deya.