Britain’s military in Kenya: Allegations, immunity and a fight for justice
Kenyan survivors are seeking accountability for alleged abuses linked to British military training, challenging immunity that has kept cases from court for decades.
Noldonyo Piro says a soldier broke her arm and sexually assaulted her the same day her sister Mantoi Lekoloi Kaunda was killed in northern Kenya in the mid-1990s. No one has ever been charged for the alleged murder, which remains among decades of allegations against soldiers from the British Army Training Unit Kenya (BATUK).
The allegations include rape, murder, abandoned children fathered by soldiers, deaths from unexploded ordnance, environmental destruction and fatal vehicle collisions. The military arrangement dates back to a 1964 defence agreement that allowed UK forces to train on Kenyan soil, with the UK repeatedly invoking sovereign immunity to prevent prosecution in Kenyan courts.
“Nothing ever happens except people coming here, asking me questions, taking pictures and then leaving.”
A legal battle against immunity
In 2021, Kenyan lawyer Kelvin Mugambi Kubai filed a class-action lawsuit against BATUK after a UK military training exercise caused a fire that destroyed 12,000 acres of grazing land. Despite warnings that sovereign immunity made the case unwinnable, Kubai challenged the British army's legal shield.
Kubai argued that the Defence Cooperation Agreement explicitly waived immunity for certain offences and civil claims. In March 2022, Justice Antonina Kossy Bor ruled that the UK had "waived their immunity to the extent stipulated," giving Kenya jurisdiction over the claim.
“I will not stand by while injustice reigns.”
“They were using a hundred-year-old trick on me,”
A precedent for accountability
The ruling established that British military personnel could be held accountable in Kenyan courts in certain circumstances. In another case, Robert James Purkiss, a former UK soldier, was charged with murder in Kenya for killing 21-year-old Agnes Wanjiru in 2012. Purkiss is now contesting extradition in a London court.
Ben Keith, a London barrister representing Purkiss, told Al Jazeera that the chances of extradition are "moderate to good" though the process could take two to three years. If extradited, Purkiss would be the first former or serving British soldier to face trial abroad for murder.
The cost of impunity
Memusi Lochede's daughter Chaula lost her leg after being hit by a speeding BATUK vehicle in 2019. The military reportedly paid hospital bills without receipts or disclosing the amount, then disappeared. "These soldiers do these things because they know they can get away with it," Lochede said.
Last year, Kenya's parliamentary defence committee released a 94-page report documenting decades of alleged BATUK abuses, including rape, murder and environmental damage. The committee concluded that BATUK "is increasingly seen as an occupying presence rather than a development partner".
