Ex UK Serviceman Charged of Killing Kenya Woman Appears in Courtroom

An individual has appeared in court as extradition proceedings started in the case of Agnes Wanjiru, a Kenyan national, a female from Kenya who was killed near a UK military installation in the year 2012.

Robert Purkiss, thirty-eight, who is a native of Greater Manchester region, showed up in Westminster magistrates court on Friday, and stated to the court he planned to fight the extradition. Sources suggest that he was arrested on Thursday night.

A warrant for arrest for the defendant was released by a court in Nairobi in September. The prosecution stated before the Kenyan court that the individual had been charged with a single count, of murder, and that the Kenyan authorities would seek his extradition to stand trial.

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

The victim, 21, a hair stylist who had a young daughter, went missing after a night on the town, and her body was discovered after two months in the area of the lodging where she had previously spotted.

Not a single person had earlier been taken into custody or accused in connection to her death. Purkiss’s arrest was the result of a recent detective probe, which was initiated after a exposé in the year 2021 by a Sunday newspaper, in which the publication contacted several active and retired troops in the regiment.

This inquiry has been spearheaded by detectives in Kenya, which, under a mutual defense pact, holds legal authority in the matter.