Dr Vincent Brown, formerly Dr Vincent Bajinya, 65, is accused of “killing, directing or encouraging” the deaths of members of the Tutsi ethnic group in Rwanda. He is the first person in the UK to have been charged over the 1994 genocide.
Brown, from Islington in north London, faces one count of conduct ancillary to genocide and six offences of conduct ancillary to murder as a crime against humanity.
A judge has now set his provisional trial date to begin in October 2027. He denies wrongdoing and has not yet entered a plea.
The defendant appeared via video link from Belmarsh prison at the Old Bailey on Friday for a pre‑trial hearing. Mrs Justice Cheema‑Grubb set a provisional eight‑to‑12‑week trial to start on 4 October 2027.
A plea and case‑management hearing is scheduled for 15 January, when Brown is expected to plead not guilty to the charges.
The court noted that a £100,000 bail condition imposed earlier in October had not yet been met. Prosecutor Bill Emlyn Jones KC described the 1994 events as “the most devastating wave of mass killing in modern history”.
Jones said: “One hundred thousand were murdered in Kigali, especially in the first days and weeks of the genocide.”
Brown qualified as a medical doctor in Rwanda in the 1980s, later becoming head of the country’s Department of Family Health in Kigali. He reportedly lived in a suburb there with his wife and young son between April 6 and 13 1994, the period during which he was allegedly involved in six murders.
