Former British Soldier Charged of Killing Kenyan Woman Shows Up in Court

An individual has been presented in court as extradition proceedings began in the legal matter of Agnes Wanjiru, a Kenyan woman who was murdered near a UK military installation in the year 2012.

Robert Purkiss, 38, who is a native of Greater Manchester region, was presented at Westminster magistrates court on Friday, and informed the court he planned to fight the extradition. It is understood that he was arrested on Thursday evening.

A warrant for arrest for the defendant was authorized by a Kenyan court in Nairobi in September. Legal prosecutors told the Kenyan court that the accused had been accused of a single count, of killing, and that the government of Kenya would request his deportation to face charges.

He served formerly as a army medic with the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment, the army unit for the northwestern England, including on tours of Afghanistan.

Wanjiru, twenty-one, a beautician who had a infant daughter, vanished after a night on the town, and her body was found 60 days later in the area of the accommodation where she had previously spotted.

Nobody had previously been taken into custody or indicted in relation to her death. The arrest of Purkiss followed a new police inquiry, which followed a exposé in the year 2021 by the Sunday Times, in which the media outlet contacted several active and retired troops in the unit.

The investigation has been led by detectives in Kenya, which, under a mutual defense pact, holds legal authority in the matter.