Former British Serviceman Accused of Murdering Kenya Female Shows Up in Courtroom

An individual has been presented in court as extradition proceedings began in the case of Agnes Wanjiru, a Kenyan woman who was found dead near a British army base in the year 2012.

The accused Robert Purkiss, thirty-eight, who is originally from the Manchester area, showed up in Westminster magistrates court on the last Friday, and told the court he would challenge the deportation. It is understood that he was detained on Thursday evening.

A detention order for the defendant was authorized by a court in Nairobi in September. The prosecution told the Kenyan court that Purkiss had been charged with a one count, of homicide, and that the government of Kenya would request his deportation to stand trial.

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

Wanjiru, 21, a hairdresser who had a baby daughter, went missing after a evening out, and her corpse was found 60 days later in the grounds of the hotel where she had last been seen.

No one had before been arrested or accused in connection to her death. The arrest of Purkiss came after a recent detective probe, which came after a article in the year 2021 by the Sunday Times, in which the media outlet contacted several current and former soldiers in the regiment.

The probe has been headed by detectives in Kenya, which, under a mutual defense pact, retains jurisdiction in the matter.