“ The British army cannot continue to ignore the murder of our friend ”

More than a decade after Agnes Wanjiru, a 21 -year -old, was killed in Kenya, allegedly by a British soldier, a Kenyan court issued an arrest warrant against a British national. If there is an extradition, it would be the first time that a portion or a former British soldier has been sent abroad to be tried for the murder of a civilian – a decision that his friends would welcome.

During the night she disappeared on March 31, 2012, Agnes begged her friend of childhood friends and her friend B to go out with her. *

Agnes and Friend A were both new mothers, both aged 21, both wanted to release steam.

Friend B was impatient to go out also and agreed to meet them at the Lions Bar Court Hotel – located in the Nanyuki business district, a market in center in Kenya, about 124 miles (200 km) north of Nairobi.

That evening, Friend B’s mother agreed to monitor the five-month-old girl’s girl for a little baby-sitting. With installed childcare services, Agnes and a friend launched themselves, making their first stop in a bar called Sherlock’s.

“There were many Muzungu men (white) there,” said friend A. “I remember that some were in simple clothes and some were in army clothes.”

The British army has a basis for supporting permanent training in Nanyuki and white men, many of whom were a familiar presence. Residents call them Johnnies, a nickname that bears uncompromising connotations.

“They made me uncomfortable because I had heard bad things about the men of Muzungu,” recalls a friend.

“Muzungus does not treat us well with Kenyan women,” adds the friend B. “Johnnies, in particular, mistreated ourselves. We lack respect.”

For young women like Agnes, the risks of engaging with these men were often weighed with the fight to reach both ends.

“When women are desperate financially, they will do almost everything to survive,” explains Ami A. “I don’t think Angnes was a sex worker. I never saw her doing this. She was very poor.”

Her friends say that on a good day, Agnès would earn around 300 Kenyan shillings – less than £ 1 ($ 1.35). By a bad day, there was nothing at all, and she relied on the goodwill of her lovingly older sister.

Agnes had no financial support from her child’s father, and her friends say that she was constantly trying to earn money, working mainly in salons and braiding people’s hair, sometimes turning to more unconventional means.

A method, remembers a friend, was simple: Agnes would befriend someone who offered to buy him a drink, then quietly asks the bartender to jump the drink and give him the money instead.

At Sherlock’s Bar that evening, the friend scrolled Facebook when she noticed Agnes in what seemed to be a tense exchange with a white man.

“When I approached her to ask her if she was fine, she told me to go to Lions short as expected and that she would join me shortly.”

Friend continued at the hotel, where friend B and several others were already dancing. A crowd of white men was also present.

Agnes joined them a little later.

She told her friends that she had “frightened” who had tried to take a Muzungu portfolio, but a bouncer had intervened. The question seemed resolved, say his friends. And to his friends, Agnes seemed to be relaxed.

“She was in a good mood,” said friend A. “She joked.”

Around midnight, friend at home, leaving the friend B and Agnes and their dancing friends.

“The Muzungus bought us drinks and Agnes returned them to the bar in exchange for money,” added Friend B. The two started to mingle with other friends. A little later, friend B says he saw Agnes leaving the bar with one of the white men and assumed that they had reached a consensual arrangement. Other reports indicate that Angnes has been seen with two men.

The next morning, friend B went to Agnes and saw her worried sister, who told him that Angnes had not returned. She rushed to her own mother, where she found the baby of Agnes always at her guard.

In the early evening, when Angnes had still not returned, friend B and another friend went to the Nanyuki police station to report his disappearance and return the baby to the sister of Agnes.

For days, Agnes’ friends were looking for her. In Lions Court, a goalkeeper told them that there had been “a big fight” in one of the hotel rooms this weekend and a window had been broken.

Almost three months later, Agnes’ body was discovered in a septic pit near the hotel. She had been stabbed. Friend B and another friend went to the morgue to see Agnes’ body.

“I felt terrible,” said friend B. “I couldn’t imagine that something could happen.”

It would take years before the murder of Agnes Wanjiru drew attention.

Judge Kenyan Njeri Thuku concluded after an investigation in 2019 that Agnes was murdered by one or two British soldiers. The Sunday Times revealed exclusively that the murder of Agnes, allegedly by a British soldier, was well known among the troops of Nanyuki. The publication reported that the soldier had been struck by the army but continues to live freely in the United Kingdom.

“I think there are many men responsible for the death of Agnes,” said friend A. “Many men know what happened, and many have covered him.”

Momentum fell back in 2024 again when open democracy reported that the British army had not disciplined soldiers for having paid for sex explicitly prohibited in 2022, following allegations involving British troops in Kenya.

This caused an internal investigation in August 2025, which revealed that some base soldiers were engaged in transactional sex with women, many of whom were vulnerable, forced or victims of sex trafficking.

In April of this year, the British Secretary of Defense, John Healey, met the family of Agnes, in Kenya, to offer condolences and publish a declaration saying that the British government “will continue to do everything possible to help the family get the justice they deserve”.

On September 16, a high Kenyane court published a arrest warrant against a British national suspected of having murdered Agnes Wanjiru.

If it is extradited, it would be the first time that a service of service or a former British soldier has been sent abroad to be tried for the murder of a civilian.

“It is very welcome and a positive step towards the arc of justice”, explains Kelvin Kubai, lawyer of the African Center for corrective and preventive actions. “However, the battle has not yet been won, given the legal obstacles of the extradition procedure, and we hope that the government’s government institutions of the two states will continue to cooperate to respect the purposes of justice.”

The niece of Agnes, Esther Njoki, created a GoFundme page to collect funds to support the family, to travel to the United Kingdom and to make aware of the murder of its aunt.

“We have to put pressure on the financial security of Agnes’s daughter,” said Esther, adding that she is now a teenager.

And the friends of Agnes agree that justice has been delayed for too long.

“The British army cannot continue to ignore the murder of our friend,” said a friend A. “We want justice for Agnes and his daughter.”

The BBC asked for comments from the Ministry of Defense.

* The BBC has changed the name of all the people listed as witnesses of a high Kenyan courtyard