A former British soldier accused of murdering 21-year-old Agnes Wanjiru in Kenya in 2012 has been arrested and is now fighting extradition.

Thirty-eight-year-old Mancunian Robert James Purkiss, a married father of two, was arrested in Manchester on Thursday, November 6, for his alleged role in the killing. Kenya’s Director of Public Prosecutions described Purkiss’s alleged murder of the hairdresser and mother as “brutal”, after a post-mortem indicated she had been stabbed in the chest and abdomen and had suffered other injuries before being concealed in a septic tank. In September, Nairobi High Court Judge Alexander Muteti authorised an arrest warrant bringing formal murder charges against Purkiss.

While appearing at Westminster Magistrates’ Court, Purkiss made it clear that he did not consent to being extradited to the East African nation.

Wanjiru’s “significantly decomposed” body was found in a septic tank two months after she was last seen “partying” with British soldiers at the Lion’s Court Hotel in Nanyuki. An inquest in 2018 concluded that Ms Wanjiru was murdered by British soldiers after being discovered near the town’s British Army base. Yet, for years, her family’s cries for a suspect and an arrest went unanswered.

On Friday, November 7, Westminster Magistrates’ Court heard that Purkiss allegedly confessed to a fellow soldier after he was seen by the former colleague crying outside the hotel around the time of the murder. When asked why he was crying, Purkiss allegedly responded, “I killed her,” and added that her death was the result of “sex that went wrong.”

The court also heard that in 2018, Purkiss allegedly responded with a smiling face emoji to a colleague’s social media post taken outside the Lion’s Court Hotel referencing the septic tank, with the comment, “If you know, you know.”

Purkiss, who “vehemently denies” any wrongdoing, was dressed in a patterned short-sleeved shirt and shook his head in the dock as Home Office barrister Joel Smith outlined the evidence and allegations against him. Judge Briony Clarke rejected Purkiss’s application for bail and ordered him to appear before the court again on November 14.

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