The murder of Agnes Wanjiru hangs over the British Army Training Unit in Kenya (BATUK).
The long-time training post is headquartered in the hometown of the 21-year-old single mother who was dumped in a hotel septic tank after being brutally murdered in 2012.
The man accused of killing her, Robert Purkiss, was stationed in Nanyuki for a training stint with BATUK.
It took two months for the Kenyan authorities to find Agnes’s body and 13 years for an arrest warrant to be issued for the former British soldier charged with her murder.
Her death has had such resounding impact, all these years on, that a Kenyan parliamentary defence committee launched a two-year inquiry into the conduct of the BATUK.
Last October, Agnes’s niece Esther told me that the spirit of her aunt cries out and that it will not rest until justice is served. The picture she described of Agnes’s suspended soul seeking resolution feels more real than imaginary.
A visit from a celebrated Kenyan-born British army chief to his training troops meant I was able to put questions to him on the grievances of Agnes’s family and others, who claim grievous harm at the hands of his troops.
General Sir Roland Walker responded to my request to share a message with Agnes’s family. He was firm and emphatic when he delivered a response.
He said: “This has got to follow all the way through to the full investigation and the legal proceedings, and this has got to be seen in the light of a court and judged in accordance with the laws of this land.
“That’s what has to happen – justice has to be done, and justice has to be seen to be done.
“That is a business for the courts, and the lawyers, and the police, and the investigation.”
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Rose, Agnes’s older sister who raised her late sibling’s daughter, is hopeful.
After years of Agnes’s murder being buried, Rose’s daughter Esther has managed to break through the stagnation and take meetings with UK Defence Secretary John Healey in Nairobi and London.
Purkiss is in custody in the UK while court hearings over his extradition continue. He vehemently denies murder, according to his lawyers.
Scrutiny on British troops in Kenya
The visit from the army’s operational chief is a huge moment for the British troops training there. The UK-Kenya defence agreement is being scrutinised by Kenya’s parliament and the public.
The two countries entered into a series of defence partnerships only months after Kenya gained independence from Britain.
For people in Nanyuki, the British never left. The market town was first set up as a white frontier settlement in the 1920s after the mass expulsion of Maasai from the Laikipia plateau by British colonial forces.
Kenyan MP Caleb Amisi believes that local communities in areas of British military activity still see them as colonial overlords.
He is on the parliamentary defence committee that investigated claims of BATUK violations and is calling for the Defence Cooperation Agreement (DCA) to become more balanced.
Mr Amisi said: “[Kenyans] believe that UK takes advantage, being the superpower, against the third world countries like Kenya. UK is advanced, militarily, economically, and therefore they’ll be an interdependence of a country like Kenya towards the UK.”
Complaints against British unit
There have been thousands of complaints of violations of conduct by the BATUK from local communities, ranging from murder and rape to environmental damage.
The Lolldaiga Hills were damaged by a fire during a BATUK training exercise in 2021 that destroyed at least 7,000 acres of conservational land. The UK Ministry of Defence accepted responsibility for the fire and reportedly paid out £2.9m to thousands of complainants in compensation.
What does the British Army’s chief of general staff – born in Kenya and raised here until he was eight years old – make of the sentiment that the British military presence is an occupying force and extension of colonialism?
“I don’t recognise it,” Sir Roland told me.
“We are here at the invitation of the Kenyan MOD. We have no right to be here at all. We recognise this is an extraordinary privilege to be able to do what we do in somebody else’s country.”
Some families have faced irreparable loss. In one herding family in Samburu, a son was killed during a BATUK live firing exercise. Another young woman is now severely disabled after she was hit by a BATUK truck that drove off, according to her mother.
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General Walker said: “We absolutely recognise that if they have suffered harm as a consequence of anything that we might be responsible for, it is very important, that they have a voice and that voice is heard.”
He added that “we want to facilitate them speaking to the correct authorities, so the right investigations take place, so the right remedies and redresses can follow. So due process is needed”.
For Agnes’s family, the loss is irreversible. Any justice achieved can lay the ground for closure and peace for them, but it will never bring her back.
