Ex UK Serviceman Accused of Killing Kenya Woman Appears in Court

An individual has appeared in court as extradition proceedings began in the legal matter of Agnes Wanjiru, a female from Kenya who was murdered near a British army base in 2012.

Purkiss, thirty-eight, who is originally from Greater Manchester, appeared before the magistrates' court in Westminster on Friday, and told the court he intended to contest the deportation. Sources suggest that he was taken into custody on the evening of Thursday.

A detention order for Purkiss was released by a Kenyan 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 government of Kenya would pursue his extradition to answer to accusations.

He was once employed as a medical attendant with the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment, the army unit for the English northwest, including on missions to Afghanistan.

Wanjiru, twenty-one, a hairdresser who had a young daughter, vanished after a night out, and her remains was discovered two months later in the area of the accommodation where she had previously spotted.

Not a single person had before been taken into custody or accused in association with her passing. His detention followed a recent detective probe, which followed a exposé in 2021 by the Sunday Times, in which the newspaper approached several active and retired troops in the unit.

The probe has been headed by detectives in Kenya, which, under a mutual defense pact, maintains prosecutorial power in the legal case.