Former UK Soldier Accused of Killing Kenyan Woman Shows Up in Courtroom

An individual has appeared in court as extradition proceedings began in the case of Agnes Wanjiru, a Kenyan woman who was found dead near a British army base in 2012.

Robert Purkiss, thirty-eight, who is hailing from Greater Manchester region, was presented at the Westminster court on Friday, and informed the court he would challenge the deportation. Reports indicate that he was detained on the evening of Thursday.

An arrest warrant for the suspect was released by a court in Nairobi in September. The prosecution told the Kenyan court that Purkiss had been facing a single count, of killing, and that the government of Kenya would seek his extradition to face charges.

Purkiss was once employed as a medic with the regiment of the Duke of Lancaster, the military regiment for the English northwest, including on deployments in Afghanistan.

Wanjiru, twenty-one, a hair stylist who had a young daughter, disappeared after a night out, and her body was found 60 days later in the area of the accommodation where she had last been seen.

Nobody had previously been detained or charged in association with her death. Purkiss’s arrest came after a fresh police investigation, which came after a article in 2021 by a weekly publication, in which the newspaper reached out to several current and former soldiers in the unit.

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