Former UK Soldier Charged of Killing Kenya Woman Shows Up in Court

An individual has been presented in court as extradition hearings started in the legal matter of Agnes Wanjiru, a Kenyan woman who was killed near a British army base in 2012.

Robert Purkiss, 38 years old, who is hailing from Greater Manchester, was presented at Westminster magistrates court on Friday, and informed the court he intended to contest the deportation. Sources suggest that he was detained on the evening of Thursday.

A detention order for the suspect was issued by a Nairobi court in the month of September. The state attorneys told the Kenyan court that Purkiss had been charged with a single count, of killing, and that the Kenyan authorities would seek his extradition to stand trial.

Purkiss was once employed as a army medic with the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment, the army unit for the north-west of England, including on missions to Afghanistan.

The victim, 21 years old, a hair stylist who had a baby daughter, disappeared after a night out, and her corpse was located after two months in the area of the lodging where she had previously spotted.

No one had before been taken into custody or accused in association with her passing. Purkiss’s arrest was the result of a recent detective probe, which came after a report in the year 2021 by a Sunday newspaper, in which the publication contacted several current and former soldiers in the unit.

The probe has been spearheaded by detectives in Kenya, which, under a mutual defense pact, maintains prosecutorial power in the legal case.