Former British Serviceman Charged of Killing Kenya Woman Appears in Courtroom

A man has been presented in court as extradition proceedings began in the legal matter of the victim Agnes Wanjiru, a Kenyan woman who was found dead near a UK military installation in 2012.

Purkiss, 38 years old, who is originally from Greater Manchester region, was presented at the Westminster court on Friday, and told the court he would challenge the extradition. It is understood that he was taken into custody on the evening of Thursday.

An arrest warrant for Purkiss was released by a court in Nairobi in September. Legal prosecutors informed the Kenyan judiciary that the accused had been charged with a sole charge, of killing, and that the government of Kenya would request his deportation to stand trial.

The defendant served formerly as a army medic with the regiment of the Duke of Lancaster, the infantry regiment for the English northwest, including on deployments in Afghanistan.

Wanjiru, 21, a hair stylist who had a baby daughter, disappeared after a night on the town, and her corpse was discovered two months later in the grounds of the hotel where she had last been seen.

Nobody had previously been taken into custody or accused in connection to her passing. Purkiss’s arrest followed a fresh police investigation, which followed a report in the year 2021 by a weekly publication, in which the newspaper reached out to several serving and ex-military personnel in the unit.

The investigation has been headed by detectives in Kenya, which, under a bilateral defence agreement, retains jurisdiction in the matter.