Former UK Soldier Accused of Murdering Kenyan Woman Appears in Courtroom

A man has been presented in court as extradition hearings commenced in the legal matter of Agnes Wanjiru, a Kenyan woman who was murdered near a British forces camp in 2012.

The accused Robert Purkiss, thirty-eight, who is a native of Greater Manchester region, showed up in the magistrates' court in Westminster on the last Friday, and informed the court he intended to contest the deportation. It is understood that he was taken into custody on the evening of Thursday.

A detention order for the defendant was released by a Nairobi court in September. The prosecution told the Kenyan court that Purkiss had been accused of a sole charge, of killing, and that the government of Kenya would pursue his extradition to face charges.

He was once employed as a medic with the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment, the infantry regiment for the English northwest, including on missions to Afghanistan.

Agnes Wanjiru, twenty-one, a hair stylist who had a infant daughter, vanished after a evening out, and her body was discovered two months later in the premises of the accommodation where she had previously spotted.

Nobody had previously been detained or charged in connection to her passing. His detention was the result of a recent detective probe, which was initiated after a article in the year 2021 by a weekly publication, in which the newspaper approached several current and former soldiers in the unit.

This inquiry has been led by Kenyan detectives, which, under a bilateral security treaty, retains jurisdiction in the case.