Survivors Fund (SURF) welcomes today’s news, as reported on BBC News, that the Crown Prosecution Service has charged Dr Vincent Brown – formerly known as Vincent Bajinya – with one offence of conduct ancillary to genocide and six offences of conduct ancillary to murder as a crime against humanity. These are the first charges ever brought in the UK relating to the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.
Brown, who lives in Islington, north London, is accused of directing and inciting killings carried out by others at roadblocks in Kigali in April 1994. The charges follow a seven-year investigation by the Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Policing War Crimes Team, opened in 2019 at the formal request of the Government of Rwanda. He is due to appear before Westminster Magistrates’ Court.
A long road to this point
This case has a long history, and Survivors Fund (SURF) – helping to support the work of REDRESS – has pressed for accountability throughout it. Bajinya was first arrested in the UK in 2006; an initial attempt to extradite him to Rwanda was upheld by a district judge in 2008 but overturned on appeal in 2009 on fair-trial grounds. He and four other suspects were re-arrested in 2013 following a fresh extradition request.
In written evidence to the UK Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, back in 2012, SURF and REDRESS argued that where extradition could not proceed, the Crown Prosecution Service had a responsibility to prosecute suspects through the UK courts rather than allow them to go on living here unaccountable – warning that Britain risked becoming, in effect, a safe haven for genocide suspects. Following the 2013 arrests, we said that nowhere, including the UK, ought to be a place where those accused of genocide could escape justice, and that impunity compounds the harm already done to survivors.
“Survivors have waited twenty years since Vincent Bajinya was first arrested and more than three decades since the alleged crimes that he committed in the genocide itself. These charges are long overdue, and we now look to the UK courts to deliver the accountability and justice that has been denied for far too long to survivors of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda,” said David Russell, UK Coordinator of Survivors Fund (SURF).
Looking ahead
SURF will continue to follow this case closely as it proceeds through Westminster Magistrates’ Court, and will keep supporting the work of REDRESS to press UK authorities to ensure no perpetrator of the genocide finds refuge from justice on British soil.