Ex British Serviceman Charged of Killing Kenyan Female Appears in Court

A man has appeared in court as extradition hearings began in the investigation of Agnes Wanjiru, a female from Kenya who was murdered near a UK military installation in 2012.

The accused Robert Purkiss, thirty-eight, who is hailing from the Manchester area, showed up in the magistrates' court in Westminster on Friday, and stated to the court he planned to fight the extradition. Sources suggest that he was arrested on Thursday night.

A detention order for the defendant was released by a Nairobi court in September. Legal prosecutors informed the Kenyan judiciary that the individual had been charged with a single count, of killing, and that the government of Kenya would request his deportation to answer to accusations.

He was once employed as a medical attendant with the Lancaster Regiment, the army unit for the north-west of England, including on tours of Afghanistan.

Agnes Wanjiru, twenty-one, a hair stylist who had a baby daughter, disappeared after a evening out, and her corpse was discovered after two months in the area of the accommodation where she had last been seen.

Not a single person had earlier been detained or charged in association with her passing. The arrest of Purkiss was the result of a recent detective probe, which followed a report in 2021 by the Sunday Times, in which the publication contacted several serving and ex-military personnel in the military group.

This inquiry has been led by detectives in Kenya, which, under a bilateral security treaty, holds legal authority in the matter.