Archbishop Gilbert Deya & The Miracle Holy Ghost Babies

I found the following articles heartbreaking. So many lives have been broken because of one man’s, Gilbert Deya, charlatanism and fraud. And then when caught he is totally unrepentent, and his duped followers continue to pledge their loyalty and their tithes to him. Furthermore he dares to claim he does what he does in the Name of Jesus.  ‘I’m going to do more miracles in the name of Jesus.’  he proudly boasts. No thanks, please, Gilbert Deya, apart from the fact I cannot see one real miracle here (apart from the fact, maybe, you got away with this for so long), the world can do without your sort of miracles. I think you’ve done more than enough harm already.

Gilbert Deya Ministries (GDM) have churches in London Ormside Street, Feltham and Walthamstow, a French speaking congregation at Ormside Street with Pastor Godwin YB Kwawu as its leader, and congregations in Digbeth, Birmingham with Pastor Amos Deya as its leader, Luton with Pastor Brazz Bakka as its leader, Hulme, Manchester with Pastor John Ezedom as its leader, Leicester with Pastor Souzie Balosa as its leader, and Liverpool with Pastor Gabriel Idowu as its leader.

The GDM website claims that they are the fastest growing ministry in the UK with over 34,000 members. It features photos of Gilbert Deya with the Queen and Prince Philip, the former Kenyan president Daniel Arap Moi and King Mswatti III of Kenya. It also prominently feautures Deya standing outside a private jetplane with the ministry logo emblazend across the cockpit.

They have a radio network (GDM radio) and Deya Broadcasting Network (DBN). I could not find anything on their website about their recent troubles, except a few paragraphs from 2005 claiming the Deya family are being ‘persecuted’, one assumes for righteousness sake. There are a couple of photos of Deya praying, trying to look saintly, but looking more sinister than saintly.

‘A pastor who has been ordered repatriated to Kenya to face child trafficking charges plans to cite the deteriorating political situation at home in his appeal against a UK court’s ruling.

Mr Gilbert Deya, who runs a south London-based ministry, had already claimed in court that he was a victim of political vendetta by the Kenyan Government because of his criticism of it.

He was arrested by the UK authorities following an extradition request by the Kenyan Government in December 2006.

UK Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has backed a ruling given by a Westminster court last November that Mr Deya should be extradited and given an order to that effect. But the pastor’s lawyers say they will appeal their case as far as the European Court on Human Rights, if necessary.

A UK judge ruled that the pastor should be extradited to face trial on counts of baby-trafficking.

Mr Deya is at the centre of the so called “miracle babies” story involving births by previously barren women as a result of prayer. During the extradition hearing, the court heard that the Kenyan police allege that the pastor’s church is an international baby-snatching ring. Their investigation centres around the disappearance of babies from Nairobi’s Pumwani Maternity Hospital.’

Daily Nation, Kenya, January 8th, 2008. Paul Redfern

‘A disturbing world in which a religious guru convinces British women they are pregnant by God with a ‘miracle baby’ was exposed today in a radio investigation. The claims prompted fears of child exploitation and baby trafficking.

Both the Church of England and the Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology have called on the Metropolitan Police to investigate the claims involving members of one of Britain’s fastest growing Evangelical churches — The Gilbert Deya Ministries.

Its head, the self-styled Archbishop Gilbert Deya, pronounces the women worshippers as pregnant ‘by Jesus’, according to the BBC Radio 4’s Face the Facts investigation. They then travel to Archbishop Deya’s Kenyan homeland where they apparently give birth to babies within days in backstreet clinics in the slums of Nairobi.

British authorities have already taken one of these so called ‘miracle’ babies into care after tests revealed its DNA did not match either of its supposed parents. Later its Kenyan birth certificate was found to be a forgery, according to the programme.

Dominic Walker, the Bishop of Monmouth and the Church of England’s spokesman on deliverance, said: “Charismatic church leaders are very powerful. And they can abuse that power.

“I believe in miracles but with the DNA evidence I don’t believe these are miracle children.

“I think some sort of baby trafficking is going on and it needs an urgent police investigation to get to the bottom of it.

Medical evidence clearly showed that these women were not pregnant, according to Consultant Patrick O’Brien, from the Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, who feared the pronouncements were exploiting would-be parents.

He said: “Childless couples are very vulnerable and so desperate that they would believe virtually anything. These are not miracle children but someone else’s children and the authorities should find out whose.”

There are 36,000 members of The Gilbert Deya Ministries in Britain which also boasts branches in Europe, Africa and Asia.

Archbishop Deya has been at the centre of controversy before when he was investigated in 2000 for allegedly exorcising demons from children. But he remains unfazed by fears, prompted by the DNA evidence, that the ‘miracle’ births are a scam. He told the programme: “The ‘miracle babies’ which are happening now in our ministry is beyond a human imagination. It’s not something that I can say I can explain because they are of God and things of God cannot be explained by human beings.”

His wife Mary describes the children as a ‘holy ghost baby’ that “came through prayer, that was why the doctor could not find them.

Archbishop Deya claims to have helped post menopausal women give birth — including a 56 year-old who has had 13 ‘miracle’ babies in three years.

Worshippers cannot be shifted in their belief of the miracle babies are a genuine gift from God. Funds have been flooding into the church in response to the so-called ‘miracles’. Members, many of them middle class and well educated, are expected to contribute a tenth of their income. A new church building, worth a million pounds, is being built in south east London.

Charles Nyeko, a product designer, is the proud father of Daniel whom he describes as a “miracle I never thought I’d see in my lifetime”.

Daniel was born in Kenya last month but just two months earlier scans carried out by British doctors confirmed that his wife Miriam was not pregnant.

“Now we have the proof,” he told the programme, “a miracle from God. We don’t understand how it has happened, we are just grateful that it has.”

Kenyan authorities are now insisting on DNA tests to establish whether Daniel is really the Nyeko’s child. Mr Nyeko hopes Daniel will be allowed to travel to Britain, but does not know when his wife might return.

He said: “Miriam is in a terrible state with no idea what will happen and we don’t know what to think”.

The church was registered as a charity in Britain in 1996. The Charity Commission launched an investigation in 2000 after worried relatives of church-goers complained of their increasingly bizarre behaviour. Archbishop Deya was the subject of investigation by child protection bodies after conducting exorcisms on young children.

The BBC has agreed to had over its findings to the Metropolitan Police.’

Above arrticle from PA News, August 12th, 2004, Helen Williams

‘Home secretary Jacqui Smith has ordered the extradition of a controversial Kenyan pastor who claims he has the power to give infertile couples ‘miracle babies’, The Observer has learnt.

Gilbert Deya, the self-styled archbishop of Gilbert Deya Ministries, who is wanted in Kenya on child-stealing charges, has pledged to take his case as far as the European Court of Human Rights to get the decision overturned. It is understood that his lawyers, who claim he is the victim of a vendetta by senior politicians in Kenya, will seek to use the current post-election turmoil in the East African country to strengthen his case.

Deya, 55, who runs his world-wide ministry from Peckham, south London, attracting 34,000 followers in the UK alone, is wanted in Kenya on five charges of abducting children aged between 22 months and four and a half years. His wife, Mary Deya, received a two-year sentence in Nairobi after being convicted of child-stealing offences in May.

Deya said that before he came to Britain in 1996 he had publicly condemned the then Kenyan President, Daniel arap Moi. ‘Speak against him and you will be killed,’ he said. ‘If I return, I will not receive a fair trial and I will be punished. At best, if convicted, I will receive 35 years in prison – that’s the rest of my life – for bearing my own children. I will fight all the way.’

The Kenyan charges follow Deya’s claims that he has the power to give ‘miracle babies’ to infertile and post-menopausal women members of his evangelical church. In all, 22 such births are said to have occurred in his church.

One case involved an African couple in Haringey, north London. The woman, who was not pregnant, went to Kenya and returned with a baby boy that she insisted had been born through divine intervention. DNA testing showed he could not be their son, and the boy, now three and the subject of a long child custody case, has since been adopted. It emerged he was brought into Britain using fake birth registry documents.

Police raided Deya’s home in Nairobi after a Kenyan press report of a couple who claimed to have delivered 13 ‘miracle babies’. Officers found 11 young children at the house, aged between two months and five years, with the couple claiming to be the biological parents of all of them.

During a search of Deya’s home three days later, 10 children were found, aged between two weeks and 14 years. These included five listed in the charges against him and named as Elijah, Miriam, Ruth, Naomi and Joshua. He claims his wife, 57, gave birth to all five, but DNA tests proved negative and forged birth certificates were found in his home.

Kenyan officials say vulnerable church members thought that Deya could make them pregnant through prayer. They were advised to go to Kenya, where it is alleged that his wife and others told them they were in labour. They were taken to illegal clinics, where they underwent what they believed to be childbirth.

Deya, a former stonemason who has posted pictures of himself meeting the Queen and Prince Philip on his website, has established 14 churches in Britain, along with African and Asian branches. Church members are expected to make weekly contributions. One 2004 advertisement said: ‘God has blessed us with miracle babies that the world has never seen anything like before. Your donation is very useful to your miracle. Please send your donation and expect your miracle. Ten pounds, a hundred pounds, a thousand pounds – make cheques payable to Gilbert Deya Ministry.’

The Home Secretary, who had the final decision on whether he would be extradited, upheld an extradition order made in November by District Judge Caroline Tubbs at London’s City of Westminster magistrates court. The court heard then more than 50 people had come forward for DNA testing by the Kenyan authorities in relation to the recovered children, but it was still not known where they had come from. Kenyan police say their investigation centres on the disappearance of babies from Nairobi’s Pumwani maternity hospital, and involves suspects in Britain, Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda and Kenya.

The Observer, January 6th, 2008, Caroline Davies and Laura Powell

‘….50 people have come forward for DNA testing by the Kenyan authorities in relation to the recovered children.

Deya is wanted by the Kenyan authorities accused of stealing five children aged between 22 months and four-and-half years. The children disappeared between May 1999 and August 2004 and Deya and his wife Mary falsely claimed to the be their natural parents, the court heard. She is serving a two-year sentence in Kenya in connection with child stealing.

Deya had urged the court to allow him to stay in the UK, arguing that his outspoken political views would make him a target for political violence and that he would never receive a fair trial. He would be made a scapegoat for his condemnation of Kenyan president Mwai Kibaki and his cabinet as corrupt and would face corporal punishment, it was claimed. In addition, forcing him to suffer the squalor of Kenyan prisons would be against his human rights, he claimed. It had been argued that once back on home soil, Deya may be tried and punished for a more serious murder charge which had allegedly mysteriously disappeared from official documents.’

Manchester Evening News, November 9th, 2007

‘Deya’s blend of charismatic, performance-style preaching and promises of miracle cures proved enticing and raised large sums of money. A ministeries advertisement said: “God has blessed us with miracle babies that the world has never seen anything like before. Your donation is very useful to your miracle. Please send your donation and expect your miracle. Ten pounds, a hundred pounds, a thousand pounds – make cheques payable to Gilbert Deya Ministry”.

Desperate women, some past the menopause and others who were infertile, were convinced that being prayed for by Mr Deya and travelling to Kenya would result in a child. Once there, they were convinced by Mrs Deya and others that they were in labour and taken to illegal clinics where they underwent what they believed to be childbirth.

In a related case heard in a London family court, a baby was removed from a couple who belonged to Deya Ministries after their local GP alerted authorities when the woman tried to register him. The woman had not been pregnant and returned from a brief stay in Kenya with the child.

Mr Justice Ryder granted custody of the child to Haringey Council and publicly rebuked the church’s practices.

The funds of his ministry have been generated at least in part by the tithes collected from a congregation that, on the facts I have found, have been deceived by the claims that have been made about Mr and Mrs E’s miracle births,” Mr Justice Ryder said, referring to the couple in that case.

Mr Deya’s extradition hearing was told that the women who believed they had given birth had been assaulted in illegal clinics in Nairobi slums. Kenyan police believe this explains unclear recollections about their ‘birth’ experience.

Millie Odhiambo-Mabona, executive director of The Cradle, a Kenyan children’s rights charity, said no-one is sure where the ‘miracle babies’ came from. None of the children taken from the Deya house have been identified. She believes the women who became convinced they had given birth were simply devout, not wilfully naive.

“Some believe in the power of witchcraft and those who are Christian believe in the power of God,” said Mrs Odhiambo-Mabona of the intense level of spirituality in some African countries, including Kenya and Nigeria.

“They believe Bishop Deya is a serious man of God so if he prays for them and then they have babies for them it is a religious reality.”

Story from BBC NEWS.

‘One of the longest child custody cases in British legal history is to return to the high court as an infertile African couple make a new attempt to recover the child they claim as their “miracle” baby.

They claim the welfare of the three-year-old boy is a matter of serious concern. The claims are contested by Haringey council in north London.

The case, which was apparently settled last July, provoked controversy because the boy was claimed by the couple to have been the result of divine intervention. They are members of Gilbert Deya Ministries, the evangelical church which claims to be Britain’s fastest growing religious movement.

Its leader, Gilbert Deya, claims to have used prayer to help infertile members of his congregation have children but in 2004 Mr Justice Ryder ruled that the baby, known as C, had in fact been trafficked into Britain from Kenya. Mr Deya’s wife, Mary, was jailed in May after a court in Nairobi found her guilty of child stealing. Kenya has also sought the extradition of Mr Deya.

Last year Mr Justice Ryder ended a custody battle which began when C was just a few weeks old and was forcibly removed from his “miracle” parents by police and social workers. The judge ruled Haringey council should be allowed to send him for long term adoption by another couple.

In doing so, he turned down the claims of the African couple, named in court as Mr and Mrs E, and C’s long-term foster carer, Mrs F. She also applied to keep the boy, with whom she was, according to the judge, “very well bonded”.

Gwen Williams, solicitor for Mrs E, said that an application was being made for a residency order for C: “Mr and Mrs E have information that gives rise to genuine concerns. They are concerned he is unhappily placed with his adoptive family.”

There have been concerns about the number of placements endured by the parentless, rootless child and the way he was moved from his “miracle” parents to a series of foster placements, to his long-term foster mother – with whom he spent half his life – and from her to his adoptive parents. Mr Justice Ryder said the “distressing scenes” which accompanied the first forced removal should have been avoided. The second removal happened without warning while C was with his foster mother in a play area.

Mr Deya claimed the system has failed the boy. “An injustice has been done to this child by taking him away from his parents in the way that he was. No other parents have ever been identified for this child and it would be in the interests of the child for him to be returned to Mr and Mrs E.” A spokesman for Haringey council said: “Our view is that this is a good family for child C to be with. The child is happy and doing well.”

Whatever the outcome of the new hearing, set for September 24, the continuing controversy represents a tragedy for C. He was brought into the UK from Kenya in October 2003 when he was 16 days old. Mrs E’s GP raised the alarm when she arrived claiming to have given birth because he had already treated her for sickle cell anaemia and knew she was infertile.

She told the court that 22 “miracle” births had occurred in Mr Deya’s church, which was described as displaying an eclectic mix of traditional African custom and charismatic belief.

The GP alerted Haringey social services, who conducted a DNA test which showed that C was not the couple’s biological child. Efforts to find his real parents failed and he was adopted by a family of Caribbean origin.’

The Guardian, USA September 14th, 2007 Diane Taylor and Hugh Muir

A millionaire preacher accused of child smuggling yesterday insisted he had been cleared.

Yesterday, he said: “They found the truth – that I am innocent. They found no evidence of child trafficking to prosecute me and the Charity Commission did not find even one penny missing.”

Charity chiefs froze the funds of Gilbert Deya Ministries in 2004 after the Kenyan was accused of running a baby snatching ring. Police in his homeland believe he stole or bought at least 19 children from poor women there. They claim some were sold to British couples for £5000 each. Deya’s church website asked followers to donate to miracle babies, stating they were also available for adoption.

Babies in Britain and Kenya were taken into care after DNA tests found no link to the women claiming to be their mothers. Two children who Deya claimed were his own remain in care.

Yesterday, the Charity Commission said: “We found there was no misuse of funds. We asked them to remove references to miracle babies from their website and that no further claims are made and they agreed. We will continue to monitor the charity’s financial procedures.”

In 2004, the Record revealed Deya was hiding in Scotland after raids on his Nairobi home. He was on Interpol’s most wanted list and the Metropolitan Police were brought in to help with the child trafficking probe. Kenya still want to extradite him over child smuggling claims. His wife is under investigation there.

Deya, now living in London, said: “If I go back, I will be assassinated. I want to stay here and open more churches. I’m going to do more miracles in the name of Jesus.”

Daily Record, Scotland, October 2nd, 2006