Ex UK Serviceman Charged of Killing Kenya Woman Appears in Courtroom

An individual has appeared in court as extradition hearings started in the legal matter of Agnes Wanjiru, a Kenyan national, a Kenyan woman who was killed near a British forces camp in 2012.

The accused Robert Purkiss, 38, who is originally from the Manchester area, appeared before the magistrates' court in Westminster on Friday, and stated to the court he planned to fight the extradition. Sources suggest that he was taken into custody on the evening of Thursday.

A warrant for arrest for the suspect was authorized by a Nairobi court in September. The state attorneys told the Kenyan court that Purkiss had been charged with a sole charge, of murder, and that the government of Kenya would pursue his extradition to stand trial.

The defendant served formerly as a medic with the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment, the army unit for the English northwest, including on tours of Afghanistan.

Agnes Wanjiru, twenty-one, a hairdresser who had a baby daughter, vanished after a night out, and her body was found 60 days later in the area of the lodging where she had last been seen.

Nobody had previously been taken into custody or accused in connection to her passing. The arrest of Purkiss came after a fresh police investigation, which was initiated after a report in the year 2021 by a Sunday newspaper, in which the publication approached several serving and ex-military personnel in the unit.

The probe has been spearheaded by detectives in Kenya, which, under a bilateral security treaty, holds legal authority in the legal case.