The Times seems to be the main paper covering this story so to avoid confusion I am putting a link to the relevant article at the end of each paragraph/quote. The links are to archive.md pages to avoid paywalls.
Agnes Wanjiru was 21 years old when she was murdered. She had a five month old baby daughter called Stacy, who turns 10 this month. Her body was found 2 months after she went missing in a septic tank near hotel where she was last seen. She had a 2cm stab wound to her lower abdomen and a blunt force injury to her chest. By the time her body had been found it was badly decomposed [Source].
Just think about that for a minute. She had been beaten and stabbed and her final moments were spent suffocating in sewage.The pathologist, Dr Obiero Okoth, found her injuries may not have been enough to have killed her. This meant she could have still been alive when she was stuffed into the septic tank. [Source]
The identity of her killer, known as Soldier X, is an open secret in the Duke of Lancaster's regiment. One soldier, known as Soldier Y, says that the killer showed him her body on the night of her murder. Soldier Y claims he "told the proper people" but was dismissed as a liar. [Source].
She had been had been beaten and stabbed. Her final moments were spent suffocating in sewage. The identity of her killer is known and yet almost a decade after her murder her family are still unable to get justice.
Soldier Y claims that on returning to base, he immediately told senior officers what he had seen at the hotel.
“I went back to camp, grassed him up [to] everyone, all the lads, all the senior command that were there, everyone. I went to higher up, hierarchy, people that should have dealt with [it]. I told the proper people, [and] I got told to get to f***.” His claims, he says, were treated as “a standing joke”. [Source]
When asked why he thought no action had been taken against Soldier X, [another] source said: “In the army, there is a certain code. You keep your mouth shut. There are some unwritten rules. Stuff does get covered up, you protect your own.” [my emphasis] [Source]
Despite this all these rumours,One of those present that night remembered the night of Agnes’s death as a debauched evening of “non-stop” sex with local prostitutes in return for only a few pounds.
“It was all night, [soldiers] ferrying women back and forth to the rooms, which were like these huts,” the former infantryman said. “You could do whatever you wanted.”
But on his return to the UK, rumours had started. “There was a lot of talk among the soldiers that a soldier had killed her [Agnes]. “I heard there was a soldier boasting about killing a prostitute in Nanyuki.” [Source]
A 2019 inquest into her death led to Judge Njeri Thuku concluding that,...the British Army has held no inquiry, and none of the soldiers present have been questioned by their superiors. Even after an inquest in 2019 — in which a judge, Njeri Thuku, ruled that Wanjiru was “murdered by British soldiers” and ordered two criminal inquiries — no action was taken by the army. [Source]
The Judge demanded two new police inquiries - one into Agnes' murder and the other into the cover-up of her death.Agnes was murdered by British soldiers... It may have been one or two. But what is certain was that it was British soldiers because they were dressed in their uniform. She went missing on March 31, 2012, and it is probable she died that night. [Source]
The article notes that Soldiers X and Y are not amongst those named in the inquest document.Thuku also made the unusual decision to name the British soldiers who had booked rooms in the hotel the night Wanjiru died, and whose names had been given to the police by the British Army Training Unit Kenya (Batuk).
“The details of her death are in the knowledge of one or two or all of the soldiers listed above,” she said. [Source]
The investigation into Agnes' murder began on 5 June 2012, just over 2 months after her disappearance. A maintenance worker who'd been told to clean the manholes and waste disposal pipes from the kitchen noticed a "foul smell" from the septic tank. The manhole cover was not padlocked and could have been accessed by anyone. The British soldiers quickly became suspects after detectives found "at least four witnesses" who had seen her leaving the hotel bar with a British soldier and go to his room. One also claimed they heard a "fierce row" between them. The detective, Corporal Ramadhan Jabali, went to the British army base but was told the soldiers who had been at the hotel on the evening of Agnes' murder had long since left Kenya [Source].By the time the regiment was deployed to Afghanistan, the name of Soldier X is said to have become common knowledge. “You ask anyone who was in Afghanistan at the time: who was it that killed that prostitute in Kenya?” said Soldier Z. “They’d tell you the person who did it.” At one point, he heard a senior officer openly referring to the alleged killer as “the one that killed the prostitute in Kenya”. [Source]
After Jabali met with the Royal Military Police he wrote to ask that the officers present at the hotel the night of Agnes' murder be questioned and DNA-tested but the "request appears to have gone missing" The MoD claim they never received the request. [Source].
It seems that no-one really wanted to touch her case once they realised British soldiers were involved,
It looks like the hotel tried to cover up the murder too. Despite blood being found in one of the rooms along with a smashed mirror, and reports of a woman screaming, none of the relevant staff who worked that night can be traced.Her body was found in June 2012, and the post-mortem examination carried out the same month. But the toxicology report was only ready a year later on April 5, 2013. The photographs of the crime scene were only developed on April 24, 2014, even though they were taken two years earlier. Chief Inspector Mugo, who took the photographs, told the inquest the photos were developed two years later because he was told “the photos were not urgent”.
“It took far too long,” said one Nanyuki police officer. “The suspects were in the UK which caused big holdups. But her file was passed from department to department, because it was too big a headache. British soldiers killing a local girl? This would have diplomatic considerations, also. The file was sent to the AG’s office, and was left there to rot.”
[Source]
The conduct of British soldiers in Nanyuki is honestly disgusting.
The army had to reinstall fencing around the camp in Nanyuki after soldiers were caught thrusting their genitals through the wire fence for prostitutes to come and perform sexual acts. Local currency would be rolled up and shoved through the wire in return. [Source]
The army base is in a clearly impoverished part of Kenya and,Two sources claimed that in 2009, the Royal Welsh Regiment went for a barbecue at the Sportsman’s Arms and an “entire platoon” of about 30 men were said to have had sex, many without condoms. Dozens were forced to take antiretroviral medicine for HIV by their commanding officer, it was claimed. The MoD said high standards of behaviour were expected from personnel “at all times”. [Source]
The military base is worth a lot of money to Kenya,The steady supply of soldiers has created an industry for sex workers. While British soldiers can pay up to £30, although some will pay much less, local men will pay only £1 for sex.
“The British are very quick, so you can get another customer,” one Nanyuki sex worker said. “Local men take much longer, are harder to please and pay less.” [Source]
That's a lot of reasons to ignore the murder of a poor prostitute. But, as the piece posted by Plodder points out,[In July 2021] Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, signed a deal with Kenya worth at least £10 million a year to Nanyuki and the surrounding area. The agreement will allow 3,000 British troops annually to train in the countryside nearby...
As part of the arrangement, the Kenyan Defence Forces can also take part in training exercises with the British Army. In the past two years, five joint exercises have been conducted, involving about 600 Kenyan troops and 4,500 British troops.
The army base, it is argued, provides a number of benefits to the wider community in Nanyuki. Royal Engineers carry out civil engineering projects such as building roads and bridges, while army medics provide healthcare to the civilian population.
Shops and businesses also depend on money spent by British soldiers on deployment. Roadside curio sellers offer hand-carved ornamental wooden badges and insignia for British troops. [Source]
And let's not forget that one of the big reasons that Kenya is so impoverished and reliant on British business is because of colonialism. Its legacy led both directly and indirectly to the murder of Agnes Wanjiru and its legacy is why, almost a decade on, her family are still denied justice.The attempt to cover up the Wanjiru case by both the Kenyan and British governments is also a potent reminder that no British settlers, officials, troops, or police officers have ever been held to account for the brutal murder and torture of thousands, and the incarceration of up to 1.5 million people in concentration camps, during the 7-year State of Emergency declared in 1952 at the height of the Mau Mau rebellion against colonial rule. In fact, for more than half a century, the British government stole, destroyed and hid any documents that might, as reported by the Guardian, “‘embarrass [the British government] or other government’ or cause problems for any colonial policeman, civil servant or member of the armed forces”.
You can now go back to talking bollocks about migration.