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