UK willing to extradite soldiers accused in murder of Kenyan woman

By Andrew Wasike

NAIROBI, Kenya (AA) – The UK is ready and willing to extradite its soldiers accused in the murder of a Kenyan woman in 2012, Britain’s Armed Forces Minister James Heappey said Wednesday.

Heappey, who is on a visit to the country, said the legal jurisdiction lies with the government of Kenya, where the murder of Agnes Wanjiru was committed.

“I am not immediately clear right now on the arrangements for extradition between the UK and Kenya, but absolutely everybody in the UK government is aware of how Agnes’s case has affected the Kenyan public, and we want you to know that we take that very seriously and we want justice to be done for her,” he said.

His comments come after locals in the town of Nanyuki took to the streets in the past week calling for justice for Wanjiru. The situation worsened after reports recently surfaced that the implicated soldiers joked and laughed about the murder according to Facebook records.

Wanjiru is alleged to have been killed by a British soldier in 2012. Locals said she was last seen at a bar leaving in the company of British servicemen.

Police in Kenya, who are to reopen investigations into the murder, found Agnes’s body in a septic tank at the Lions Court Hotel in Nanyuki.

“What I have said to the representatives of the community and what the Secretary of Defense Ben Wallace and I have made absolutely clear to everybody who works in the British Ministry of Defense and the British Armed Forces is that if there are further allegations that come to light, absolutely no stone will be left unturned in making sure that we provide all the information necessary to the Kenyan authorities to investigate these claims.

“The UK has nothing to hide here. We want those responsible to be brought to justice because Agnes and her family have already had to wait too long,” Heappey added.

Thousands of soldiers have received training from the British Army Training Unit Kenya (BATUK) camp, a British military training facility in Nanyuki.

According to the UK Ministry of Defense, BATUK consists of around 100 permanent staff and a reinforcing short tour cohort of another 280 personnel. Under an agreement with the Kenyan government, up to six infantry battalions per year carry out eight-week exercises in Kenya.

There are also Royal Engineer exercises, which carry out civil engineering projects, and medical deployments which provide primary health care assistance to the civilian community.