Former UK Soldier Charged of Murdering Kenyan Woman Shows Up in Courtroom

An individual has been presented in court as deportation processes started in the investigation of Agnes Wanjiru, a Kenyan national, a Kenyan woman who was murdered near a UK military installation in the year 2012.

Robert Purkiss, 38, who is hailing from Greater Manchester region, showed up in the Westminster court on Friday, and informed the court he planned to fight the extradition. Sources suggest that he was arrested on Thursday night.

A detention order for the defendant was issued by a court in Nairobi in September. The state attorneys told the Kenyan court that the individual had been charged with a single count, of murder, and that the government of Kenya would seek his extradition to answer to accusations.

The defendant previously worked as a medic with the regiment of the Duke of Lancaster, the infantry regiment for the English northwest, including on deployments in Afghanistan.

Agnes Wanjiru, 21, a hairdresser who had a baby daughter, disappeared after a night out, and her corpse was found after two months in the premises of the hotel where she had previously spotted.

No one had earlier been taken into custody or indicted in relation to her death. Purkiss’s arrest was the result of a new police inquiry, which was initiated after a report in the year 2021 by a Sunday newspaper, in which the publication reached out to several active and retired troops in the unit.

The probe has been spearheaded by detectives in Kenya, which, under a bilateral defence agreement, holds legal authority in the matter.