Ex-Rwandan official appears at UK trial over 1994 genocide 

A former Rwandan official has appeared in a court in the United Kingdom after being charged with ordering six killings during the first week of the Rwandan genocide in 1994.

Vincent Brown, a 65-year-old doctor formerly known as Vincent Bajinya, is the first ⁠person to be charged in Britain over the genocide, in which more than 800,000 people, most from the Tutsi ethnic minority, were killed in over 100 days of nationwide massacres. He denied any wrongdoing.

On Tuesday, Brown spoke in court to confirm his name, date of birth and address. He did not enter a plea.

Brown faces one charge of conduct ancillary to genocide in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali, in April 1994 during the first week of the genocide. The doctor is accused of ordering six killings in four days, including of a young mother and her baby son.

Prosecutor Jane Stansfield said Brown was head of the Department of Family Health within ⁠Rwanda’s National Office of Population when the genocide began.

Originally from Kigali, Brown is believed to have entered the UK as an asylum seeker in 1998 and lived in London, where he once worked for a charity assisting refugee nurses and midwives seeking work in Britain.

Brown officially changed his last name from Bajinya when granted UK citizenship in 2004 and was first arrested in 2006. His extradition to Rwanda along with four other men was finally refused by a British court in 2017.

The Rwandan government had asked the Metropolitan Police to investigate the men for involvement in killings in the Rugenge district of Kigali that are the focus of Brown’s current trial.

The charges arose after a complex seven-year UK investigation that began in September 2019.

Brown’s lawyer Sam ⁠Blom-Cooper said his client welcomed an opportunity to clear his name. “These are appalling crimes, terrible murders that were committed back in 1994,” he said. “But this, finally, does represent the beginning of the end for Dr Brown.”

Chief Magistrate Paul Goldspring granted Brown bail on condition that his family pay 25,000 pounds ($33,000) security. Due to the seriousness of the allegations, he transferred the case to the Central Criminal Court, also known as the Old Bailey, where Brown is due to appear on October 9.

Commander Helen Flanagan, head of Counter Terrorism Policing London, said the trial will set an important precedent against impunity even for decades-old allegations.

“This case demonstrates the UK is not a safe haven for individuals suspected of committing international crimes,” she said.