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The UK’s Nationwide Crime Company says suspect was a former soldier who was arrested on Thursday by specialist officers.
Printed On 7 Nov 2025
A former British soldier wished by Kenyan authorities has appeared in a London courtroom after being arrested in reference to the alleged homicide of a girl close to a UK military coaching camp within the East African nation greater than a decade in the past.
In September, Kenya issued an arrest warrant and requested the extradition of a British citizen over the homicide of 21-year-old Agnes Wanjiru close to a UK military coaching camp in 2012, a case which has strained relations between the 2 nations.
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Wanjiru was present in a septic tank on the Lion’s Court docket Lodge within the Kenyan city of Nanyuki in 2012, having final been seen on the resort with a gaggle of British troopers.
A Kenyan Justice of the Peace concluded in an inquest in 2019 that she had been murdered by the troopers, and in September, Kenya made a proper request to extradite a suspect.
The UK’s Nationwide Crime Company (NCA) mentioned the suspect was a former soldier who was arrested on Thursday by specialist officers after the warrant was issued.
“Robert James Purkiss, 38, appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court docket at present for extradition proceedings to start,” the NCA mentioned on Friday.
“He was remanded into custody till his subsequent look on the identical courtroom on November 14.”
The delay in securing justice has sparked outrage in Kenya, with Wanjiru’s household and rights teams arguing that the killers had been being shielded by a defence cooperation settlement that complicates the prosecution of British troopers coaching in Kenya.
Wanjiru, the one mom of a then four-month-old child, was crushed and stabbed, and was most likely nonetheless alive when she was thrown into the septic tank, a Justice of the Peace mentioned within the 2019 inquest report.
Purkiss’s lawyer David Josse mentioned that his shopper “vehemently denies” homicide and that he has obtained funding from the UK’s Ministry of Defence to pay for his defence.
The case was a supply of competition between Kenyan authorities and the UK’s earlier Conservative authorities, and was in limbo for years.
Purkiss, a married father of two, advised Westminster Magistrates’ Court docket in London that he didn’t consent to being extradited, the Press Affiliation information company reported.
The Labour celebration, which eliminated the Conservatives from energy in a July election final yr, has promised to assist the Kenyan investigation and “safe a decision to this case”.
Since Kenya gained independence in 1963, the UK has stored a everlasting military base close to Nanyuki, about 200 kilometres (125 miles) north of the capital Nairobi.
The British Military Coaching Unit in Kenya is an financial lifeline for a lot of in Nanyuki however has confronted criticism over allegations of misconduct by its troopers, in addition to the maiming of civilians by unexploded ordnance.
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