UK Court Charges Rwandan Doctor Over 1994 Genocide Killings
A London court has charged Rwandan doctor Vincent Brown with overseeing six killings during the 1994 genocide, marking the first such UK prosecution.
A Rwandan doctor appeared in a London court on Tuesday accused of directing six killings during the 1994 Rwandan genocide, in the first prosecution of its kind in the United Kingdom.
Dr. Vincent Brown, 65, who was formerly known as Vincent Bajinya, is charged with one count of conduct ancillary to genocide and six counts of conduct ancillary to murder as a crime against humanity. British law permits prosecutors to pursue certain international offenses, including genocide and crimes against humanity, regardless of where they were committed.
Prosecutor Jane Stansfield told Westminster Magistrates' Court that Brown acted as a leader or supervisor in the killings. The allegations relate to several days in April 1994, when Brown was head of the department of family health at Rwanda's National Office of Population.
According to the prosecution, Brown led a group to a house in the Rugenge district of Kigali on April 8 and ordered the shootings of Dominique Mukurarinda, Immaculee Mukankusi and Gerase Rurangirwa. He is accused of ordering the killings of Charlotte Kamaguja and her infant son Olivier Tuyishime on April 10, and of directing the group that stoned taxi driver Leandre Mbogoye to death between April 9 and 11.
Brown denied any involvement when questioned by police in 2020, a year after Metropolitan Police war crimes investigators opened the case at the request of the Rwandan government. He did not enter a plea and spoke only to confirm his identity. He was released on 25,000-pound ($33,400) bail and ordered to appear at London's Central Criminal Court on Oct. 9.
Defense lawyer Sam Blom-Cooper said Brown wants to clear his name. Another defense attorney, Frank Brazell, said Brown has always maintained his innocence "in the face of manifestly fabricated evidence against him" and has urged British authorities to prosecute him because he believes he will receive a fair trial in the U.K.
Brown, originally from Kigali, lives in London, where he once worked for a charity assisting refugee nurses and midwives seeking work in Britain. He is believed to have entered the U.K. as an asylum-seeker in 1998, and he changed his name when granted British citizenship in 2004.
A Rwandan government spokesperson, Yolande Makolo, described the prosecution as a long-overdue step toward accountability following a seven-year investigation.
Police said they are continuing to investigate several other Rwandan genocide suspects living in Britain. Cmdr. Helen Flanagan, head of counterterrorism policing, said the case demonstrates that the U.K. is not a safe haven for suspects in international crimes.