Ex UK Soldier Charged of Killing Kenyan Female Appears in Court

A suspect has shown up before a judge as extradition hearings commenced in the case of Agnes Wanjiru, a Kenyan national, a woman of Kenyan origin who was killed near a British army base in the year 2012.

Purkiss, thirty-eight, who is hailing from Greater Manchester, showed up in the magistrates' court in Westminster on the last Friday, and informed the court he intended to contest the extradition. Sources suggest that he was taken into custody on Thursday evening.

An arrest warrant for Purkiss was authorized by a court in Nairobi in September. The state attorneys told the Kenyan court that the accused had been accused of a sole charge, of killing, and that the Kenyan government would request his deportation to stand trial.

Purkiss was once employed as a medical attendant with the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment, the military regiment for the north-west of England, including on deployments in Afghanistan.

Agnes Wanjiru, twenty-one, a hairdresser who had a young daughter, vanished after a night on the town, and her remains was located two months later in the grounds of the hotel where she had last been seen.

No one had before been detained or charged in relation to her demise. The arrest of Purkiss followed a recent detective probe, which followed a report in the year 2021 by the Sunday Times, in which the publication approached several current and former soldiers in the military group.

The investigation has been headed by investigators from Kenya, which, under a bilateral security treaty, retains jurisdiction in the legal case.