Overview
- The Crown Prosecution Service authorised one count of conduct ancillary to genocide and six counts of conduct ancillary to murder against Dr Vincent Brown, and he appeared at Westminster Magistrates' Court where he was granted conditional bail with £25,000 security.
- Prosecutors allege Brown directed and incited killings in Kigali in early April 1994 and ordered six specific murders over four days, including the killing of a young mother and her baby.
- The charges follow a complex seven-year inquiry by the Metropolitan Police War Crimes Team that began in September 2019 after a formal request from the Rwandan government and relied on international deployments and witness evidence.
- Britain used the International Criminal Court Act 2001 to prosecute these alleged crimes after a 2017 UK court refused extradition for Brown, allowing domestic proceedings for crimes committed abroad.
- Police say multiple other investigations into suspected participants in the 1994 genocide who live in the UK remain active, a development that could lead to further prosecutions and matters of accountability for survivors and victims' families.