The niece of a Kenyan woman allegedly killed by a British soldier serving in the country, has called for the extradition of the man accused. Esther Njoki, 21, was just eight years old when her “extrovert” aunt Agnes Wanjiru was found in a septic tank close to an army base in the town of Nanyuki in 2012, two months after her disappearance.
Speaking a day after she met with Defence Secretary John Healey to make the case for extradition, Ms Njoki told the Daily Express of the importance of justice being served in her home country. She said: “It is important because we have suffered as a family for 13 years. The law applies to all. If you break the law, then you have to face the consequences, and by doing so, you should be taken to where you committed the crime.
“It also means that he learns a lesson and other people learn lessons through him.”
Tuesday’s meeting was their second, following Mr Healey’s meeting with Ms Njoki in Kenya earlier this year.
He said he had reiterated the Government’s “steadfast support for her family’s long and painful fight for justice” and paid tribute to her as an “extraordinary spokesperson for her family and for women who have suffered violence”.
Mr Healey said: “Our Government will continue to do everything we can to support the Kenyan investigation, secure a resolution to this case and finally bring peace to Esther and her grieving family.”
Ms Njoki said the loss of her aunt had “left a permanent scar on my family”, as had “the years of silence, frustration and trauma we’ve endured trying to get justice since”.
Ms Wanjiru’s alleged murderer was named in September this year as Robert James Purkiss, a former soldier, and a warrant has been issued in Kenya for his arrest.
Purkiss denies the charge.
Ms Wanjiru was working as a sex worker at the time of her disappearance, a practice that has become common in towns surrounding military bases for centuries.
The British Army has taken active steps in recent years to prevent soldiers from engaging in prostitution while deployed overseas, but Ms Njoki believes that the practice is still happening.
She added: “It is still happening for sure, I have observed it.
“The only thing they have done is change the way they are soliciting sex, nowadays they have a group of girls and then they are taken to a B&B, they have mobile apps, so nothing has changed.”
Ms Njoki has called for the British Army to cease training in Kenya, with regiments regularly cycling through to acclimatise to operating in hot and humid environments.
Their presence, to Ms Njoki, is a continuation of colonialism, despite the significant sum paid to the Kenyan Government to allow them to use sites across the country for large-scale exercises.
She said: “I don’t understand in the first place why they are in Kenya, they already have foreign bases, and now we are not in the colonial times, and Kenya has sovereignty for more than 60 years, I don’t know why they are training in Kenya in the first place.”
British Army Training Unit Kenya (BATUK) is the British Army’s largest contingent of soldiers in Africa.
The British Army regularly conducts joint training with the Kenyan Defence Forces, recently training soldiers on best practice to equip them in their fight with Al Shabab on the Somali border.
It also operates outreach and engagement programmes, such as support for the replanting of forestry and pop-up medical clinics in remote regions, which treat thousands of patients in areas that have limited regular access to healthcare.
She said: “I don’t understand in the first place why they are in Kenya, they already have foreign bases, and now we are not in the colonial times, and Kenya has sovereignty for more than 60 years, I don’t know why they are training in Kenya in the first place.”