Ex British Serviceman Charged of Killing Kenya Woman Appears in Court

A suspect has shown up before a judge as extradition proceedings commenced in the case of the victim Agnes Wanjiru, a woman of Kenyan origin who was murdered near a UK military installation in 2012.

The accused Robert Purkiss, 38 years old, who is a native of the Manchester area, was presented at the Westminster court on the last Friday, and told the court he planned to fight the deportation. Sources suggest that he was detained on the evening of Thursday.

An arrest warrant for the suspect was released by a court in Nairobi in September. Legal prosecutors informed the Kenyan judiciary that the accused had been charged with a single count, of homicide, and that the Kenyan government would request his deportation to answer to accusations.

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

The victim, 21, a hairdresser who had a infant daughter, disappeared after a night on the town, and her remains was located two months later in the area of the accommodation where she had previously spotted.

Nobody had before been arrested or accused in association with her death. Purkiss’s arrest came after a recent detective probe, which was initiated after a article in the year 2021 by a Sunday newspaper, in which the media outlet reached out to several serving and ex-military personnel in the regiment.

This inquiry has been led by detectives in Kenya, which, under a bilateral defence agreement, maintains prosecutorial power in the legal case.