Ex UK Serviceman Charged of Killing Kenyan Woman Shows Up in Court

A suspect has shown up before a judge as deportation processes began in the legal matter of Agnes Wanjiru, a woman of Kenyan origin who was murdered near a British army base in 2012.

Robert Purkiss, 38, who is a native of Greater Manchester, appeared before Westminster magistrates court on the last Friday, and informed the court he intended to contest the extradition request. It is understood that he was detained on Thursday night.

A warrant for arrest for Purkiss was released by a Kenyan court in Nairobi in the month of September. The state attorneys stated before the Kenyan court that Purkiss had been facing a single count, of homicide, and that the Kenyan government would pursue his extradition to answer to accusations.

Purkiss was once employed as a army medic with the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment, the army unit for the north-west of England, including on missions to Afghanistan.

Agnes Wanjiru, 21, a hair stylist who had a infant daughter, vanished after a evening out, and her corpse was located 60 days later in the premises of the hotel where she had previously spotted.

Nobody had earlier been detained or indicted in association with her demise. The arrest of Purkiss was the result of a fresh police investigation, which was initiated after a report in 2021 by a weekly publication, in which the publication reached out to several serving and ex-military personnel in the unit.

The probe has been spearheaded by detectives in Kenya, which, under a mutual defense pact, holds legal authority in the case.