British prosecutors charge doctor in the 1994 Rwandan genocide

A doctor from Rwanda was arrested in London and charged Monday with crimes related to the 1994 Rwandan genocide, British authorities said.

Dr. Vincent Brown, formerly known as Vincent Bajinya, is the first person to be charged in the U.K. for taking part in the ethnic genocide in which an estimated 800,000 people were killed, prosecutors said.

Brown, 65, was arrested and charged with one count of conduct ancillary to genocide and six counts of conduct ancillary to murder as a crime against humanity. U.K. law allows British prosecutors to bring charges for some international offenses, including genocide and crimes against humanity, regardless of where they were committed.

“The charges relate to allegations that Dr. Brown took part in the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda in 1994,” said Frank Ferguson, head of the Crown Prosecution Service’s counterterror division. “He is alleged to have directed and incited acts of murder and genocide carried out by others.”

Metropolitan Police war crimes investigators began looking into the case in 2019 at the request of the Rwandan government.

Brown is originally from Kigali but lives in London, where he once worked for a London-based charity assisting refugee nurses and midwives seeking to work in Britain.

He is believed to have entered the U.K. as an asylum seeker in 1998, former Rwandan Justice Minister Tharcisse Karugarama told The Associated Press in 2006.

Brown changed his name when granted British citizenship in 2004, attorney Philip Eldin-Taylor said at the time.

Brown is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday.

Police said they are continuing to investigate several other Rwandan genocide suspects living in Britain.

“This case demonstrates the U.K. is not a safe haven for individuals suspected of committing international crimes,” Cmdr. Helen Flanagan, head of counterterror policing, said.