First UK charges brought over 1994 Rwanda genocide

A Rwandan man, who has been living in north London, has become the first person charged in the UK with offences relating to the 1994 Rwanda genocide, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has said.

Dr Vincent Brown, formerly Dr Vincent Bajinya, 65, has been charged with one offence of conduct ancillary to genocide and six offences of conduct ancillary to murder as a crime against humanity.

Frank Ferguson, head of the CPS’s Special Crime and Counter Terrorism Division, said Brown “is alleged to have directed and incited acts of murder and genocide carried out by others”.

Brown will appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday.

Ferguson said the decision to charge Brown was made “after reviewing a file of evidence submitted by the War Crimes Team at the Metropolitan Police”.

“We concluded that our legal test for bringing criminal charges had been met,” he added.

The War Crimes Team began their investigation in September 2019 after a formal request from the Rwandan government to investigate people allegedly involved in a genocide in the Rugenge district of Kigali in April 1994.

Over the course of 100 days in 1994, an estimated 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus people were killed in Rwanda by Hutu extremists.

They were targeting members of the minority Tutsi community, as well as their political opponents, irrespective of their ethnic origin.

The mainly Tutsi forces who took power following the genocide were alleged to have killed thousands of Hutu people in Rwanda in retaliation.

The Metropolitan Police said the charges against Brown follow “a complex and extensive seven-year investigation”.

Commander Helen Flanagan, head of Counter Terrorism Policing London, said: “This case demonstrates the UK is not a safe haven for individuals suspected of committing international crimes.

“The War Crimes Teams remains committed to ensuring those suspected of involvement in genocide and other atrocity crimes are held accountable through due legal process.

“A number of other investigations remain ongoing into other individuals in the UK for similar offences related to the genocide in Rwanda.”