Ex UK Serviceman Charged of Murdering Kenyan Woman Appears in Courtroom

An individual has shown up before a judge as extradition hearings commenced in the legal matter of Agnes Wanjiru, a Kenyan national, a female from Kenya who was murdered near a British forces camp in the year 2012.

Robert Purkiss, thirty-eight, who is hailing from Greater Manchester region, showed up in Westminster magistrates court on Friday, and told the court he planned to fight the extradition. It is understood that he was detained on Thursday night.

A warrant for arrest for the defendant was released by a court in Nairobi in September. The state attorneys informed the Kenyan judiciary that Purkiss had been charged with a sole charge, of killing, and that the Kenyan authorities would seek his extradition to face charges.

He was once employed as a medic with the regiment of the Duke of Lancaster, the military regiment for the English northwest, including on tours of Afghanistan.

The victim, twenty-one, a hair stylist who had a infant daughter, went missing after a night out, and her corpse was located 60 days later in the premises of the accommodation where she had last been seen.

Not a single person had before been arrested or indicted in connection to her passing. Purkiss’s arrest was the result of a new police inquiry, which came after a exposé in 2021 by a weekly publication, in which the publication approached several serving and ex-military personnel in the unit.

The investigation has been led by Kenyan detectives, which, under a bilateral security treaty, maintains prosecutorial power in the legal case.