Ex UK Soldier Accused of Killing Kenya Female Appears in Court

A suspect has been presented in court as extradition proceedings commenced in the case of Agnes Wanjiru, a Kenyan national, a woman of Kenyan origin who was found dead near a UK military installation in the year 2012.

Robert Purkiss, 38, who is originally from Greater Manchester, was presented at the Westminster court on Friday, and stated to the court he intended to contest the extradition. Sources suggest that he was arrested on the evening of Thursday.

A warrant for arrest for the defendant was released by a Nairobi court in September. Legal prosecutors told the Kenyan court that the individual had been facing a sole charge, of homicide, and that the government of Kenya would seek his extradition to stand trial.

The defendant was once employed as a army medic with the Lancaster Regiment, the military regiment for the northwestern England, including on missions to Afghanistan.

Wanjiru, twenty-one, a beautician who had a young daughter, vanished after a night out, and her corpse was located after two months in the premises of the accommodation where she had previously spotted.

Nobody had earlier been taken into custody or indicted in association with her death. His detention came after a new police inquiry, which followed a report in 2021 by a weekly publication, in which the media outlet reached out to several current and former soldiers in the regiment.

This inquiry has been led by detectives in Kenya, which, under a mutual defense pact, retains jurisdiction in the legal case.