UK Brings First Rwanda Genocide Charges Against Vincent Brown
UK prosecutors have charged doctor Vincent Brown over his alleged role in the 1994 Rwanda genocide, marking the first such prosecution in the United Kingdom.
British prosecutors have charged Vincent Brown over his alleged role in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, in what officials described as the first case of its kind brought in the United Kingdom.
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Brown, a 65-year-old doctor formerly known as Vincent Bajinya, was arrested and charged on Monday after a seven-year investigation. He faces one count of conduct ancillary to genocide and six offences of aiding crimes against humanity in Rwanda.
He is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday.
Allegations under investigation
Frank Ferguson, head of the Crown Prosecution Service’s counterterror division, said the charges concerned allegations that Brown took part in the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda in 1994.
“He is alleged to have directed and incited acts of murder and genocide carried out by others,” Ferguson said.
The allegations have not been established as proven facts. The source material does not include a response from Brown or specify the individual acts said to underpin each charge.
Commander Helen Flanagan, head of counterterror policing, said the case showed that the United Kingdom was not a safe haven for people suspected of international crimes.
Investigation followed extradition refusal
Brown was first arrested in 2006. A UK court later refused his extradition to Rwanda, along with that of four other men, in 2017.
Metropolitan Police war crimes investigators began examining the case in 2019 at the request of the Rwandan government. Police said they were continuing to investigate several other Rwandan genocide suspects living in Britain, although no further details were provided.
Brown was originally from Kigali and lives in London. He previously worked for a charity that assisted refugee nurses and midwives seeking employment in Britain.
Former Rwandan justice minister Tharcisse Karugarama said Brown was believed to have entered the UK as an asylum seeker in 1998. Attorney Philip Eldin-Taylor said Brown changed his name when he was granted UK citizenship in 2004.
Significance of the charges
The Crown Prosecution Service said the case was the first time charges connected to the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda had been brought in the United Kingdom. Several other countries have already prosecuted people suspected of involvement in the genocide.
The violence in Rwanda left an estimated 800,000 people, mostly Tutsis, dead during 100 days of slaughter.
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