Former British Serviceman Charged of Murdering Kenya Woman Appears in Courtroom

An individual has shown up before a judge as extradition proceedings started in the legal matter of Agnes Wanjiru, a Kenyan national, a Kenyan woman who was killed near a British army base in 2012.

Robert Purkiss, 38, who is a native of Greater Manchester, showed up in the Westminster court on Friday, and informed the court he planned to fight the extradition. Sources suggest that he was detained on the evening of Thursday.

A warrant for arrest for Purkiss was released by a court in Nairobi in the month of September. Legal prosecutors informed the Kenyan judiciary that the individual had been accused of a single count, of homicide, and that the Kenyan government would pursue his extradition to stand trial.

The defendant was once employed as a medic with the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment, the military regiment for the north-west of England, including on deployments in Afghanistan.

The victim, twenty-one, a beautician who had a young daughter, went missing after a night on the town, and her remains was located after two months in the area of the hotel where she had last been seen.

Nobody had previously been arrested or charged in connection to her death. The arrest of Purkiss came after a recent detective probe, which followed a report in the year 2021 by the Sunday Times, in which the publication reached out to several current and former soldiers in the regiment.

This inquiry has been headed by investigators from Kenya, which, under a bilateral security treaty, maintains prosecutorial power in the matter.