LONDON (AP) — A British prosecutor accused a doctor on Tuesday of overseeing six killings during the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
Dr. Vincent Brown was a leader or supervisor in the killing of a young woman and her baby, three household members and a taxi driver who was stoned to death, prosecutor Jane Stansfield said in Westminster Magistrates’ Court.
Brown, 65, who was 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. He is 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.
Brown denied playing any role in the killings when interviewed by police in 2020, a year after Metropolitan Police war crimes investigators began looking into the case at the request of the Rwandan government, prosecutors said.
Defense lawyer Sam Blom-Cooper said in court that Brown wants to clear his name.
Another defense attorney, Frank Brazell, told The Associated Press that Brown has always maintained his innocence “in the face of manifestly fabricated evidence against him” and has urged U.K. authorities to prosecute him, because he believes he'll get a fair trial here.
Brown didn't enter a plea and only spoke to confirm his identity. He was released on 25,000-pound ($33,400) bail and ordered to appear next at London's Central Criminal Court on Oct. 9.
Rwandan government spokesperson Yolande Makolo said that the prosecution marked a long-overdue step toward accountability following the seven-year investigation.
The allegations span several days in April 1994 when Brown worked as head of the department of family health at the National Office of Population.
Brown led a group to a house in the Rugenge district of Kigali on April 8 and ordered the shootings of Dominique Mukurarinda, Immaculee Mukankusi and Gerase Rurangirwa, Stansfield said.
He ordered the killings of Charlotte Kamaguja and her infant son Olivier Tuyishime on April 10, prosecutors said. He directed the group that stoned cabbie Leandre Mbogoye between April 9 and 11, authorities said.
Brown is originally from Kigali and lives in London, where he once worked for a charity assisting refugee nurses and midwives seeking to work in Britain. He's believed to have entered the U.K. as an asylum-seeker in 1998, former Rwandan Justice Minister Tharcisse Karugarama told the AP in 2006.
Brown changed his name when granted U.K. citizenship in 2004, an attorney for him said at the time.
Police said they were continuing to investigate several other Rwandan genocide suspects living in Britain. Cmdr. Helen Flanagan, head of counterterrorism policing, said that the case shows that the U.K. isn't a safe haven for international crime suspects.
Khaled Kazziha contributed to this report from Nairobi, Kenya.
FILE - The outside of Westminster Magistrates Court in London, Oct. 21, 2021. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali, File)
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres pleaded for “a world built on interdependence” as he made his final address Tuesday to a yearly gathering of world leaders convening to face a formidable menu of challenges — from climate change and war to inequality and artificial intelligence.
The U.N. leader has long implored leaders not to give up on cooperation and shared decision-making in the face of accelerating global challenges and increasing great-powers competition. Tuesday’s message at the U.N. General Assembly took on additional urgency because he leaves office at the end of this year.
“The fault lines in our world are widening,” he said, citing raging wars, risingtemperatures and artificial intelligence, among other matters. Instead of letting the future continue to veer toward fragmentation, transactionalism and mistrust, he called for “a world built on interdependence – and sustained by a dense web of economic, political, social and technological connections.”
His speech opened the main portion of the world's biggest diplomatic meeting of the year. Leaders from the U.N.'s 193 member countries address each other and the international community and air their hopes, plans and grievances.
Guterres also rebuked might-makes-right thinking, telling superpowers to recognize “that their power isn’t so super.” Recent years have made it clear that “military power alone cannot secure peace,” he said.
Yet about an hour after Guterres spoke, U.S. President Donald Trump offered a different and equally frank view of power.
“While others have promised strength, I have used it to make America the most powerful country in the world,” Trump said, touting his country's economic and military footprint.
The annual high-level gathering at the U.N. General Assembly will be consumed with wars in Iran, Gaza, Ukraine,Sudan, Congo and Myanmar and a persisting question: Can the leaders do anything to end them?
And what can they do about the relentless rise of global warming threatening the future of the planet, the growing inequalities within and among nations, and shocks to the global economy as blocked shipping routes and supply chains increase the cost of living and slow growth?
The future of the United Nations will also be on the agenda. At 81, its powers are still the victorious nations from World War II, not the 21st century’s major global players. Member nations have agreed to a wide-ranging reform package that includes updating key institutions such as the powerful U.N. Security Council, where the U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France hold inordinate sway because of their veto power. Reform, however, is easier said than implemented.
Behind the scenes, there will be speculation about who will lead the United Nations next. Guterres’ second five-year term ends Dec. 31 and no clear successor has emerged.
Guterres closed his speech by acknowledging the forthcoming departure and vowing to “never, ever give up” on the values for which the U.N. stands.
“Wherever I will be, whatever I will be doing, I will keep championing the conviction that peace is possible,” he said, before leaving the rostrum amid a sustained, standing ovation. He put his hand on his heart.
There is still no question that the U.N. remains the key gathering place for its member nations and their leaders. Some 130 heads of state and government are expected to speak at the General Assembly, along with dozens of ministers.
Among the headliners: Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron, who also is set to speak Tuesday. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian speak Wednesday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — whom New York Mayor Zoran Mamdani wanted arrested for his treatment of Palestinians in Gaza until he learned he has no such authority — will address the assembly on Thursday. For a second year, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas won’t be coming to the U.N. because the U.S. has refused to give him a visa. He will nonetheless address the assembly by video the same day.
The United States, under its agreement with the U.N. to host the organization, is required to allow diplomats from all member nations to attend meetings.
Equally telling is who else isn’t coming. China’s President Xi Jinping is meeting Trump in Washington on Wednesday, yet he is skipping — some diplomats say snubbing — the U.N. gathering and sending a vice president instead. Russian President Vladimir Putin isn’t coming either, and Indian President Narendra Modi has backed out.
France's U.N. ambassador, Jerome Bonnafont, said ahead of the gathering that it is “extremely critical” for world leaders to support the U.N. as the place where the world’s nations meet — especially at a time of such polarization.
“We believe in multilateralism," he said, "and we believe that the high-level week is the occasion for countries in the world to reaffirm that they prefer cooperation and dialogue to confrontation.”
There is no doubt it’s been a tough year for the world body. It has been pushed to the sidelines when it comes to its key responsibility of ensuring international peace and security and trying to end major conflicts in the Mideast and Ukraine. The U.S. failure to pay billions of dollars in outstanding arrears has left the organization’s finances in rocky shape.
“While the world still trusts the U.N., the global public is eager for change," said former U.N. deputy secretary-general Mark Malloch-Brown, a United Nations Foundation board member.
The future of artificial intelligence has pushed to the forefront of global concerns, with its speeding advances and the dawning recognition that there are no industry controls, let alone any global guardrails for a technology that has many advantages but also many disadvantages and unknowns.
Days before the global gathering, leaders of three major AI companies warned about the technology getting out of human control and called for a pause, but Trump dismissed their concerns as “a hoax,” and urged continued advances to keep the U.S. ahead of China.
The U.N. Security Council added a high-level meeting on AI to its agenda on Wednesday afternoon, a sign of the growing apprehension and need to address the issue. It was already slated to hold a high-level meeting on Ukraine with Zelenskyy on Wednesday morning.
Edith M. Lederer has covered international affairs for The Associated Press for more than a half century.
The United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks during the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly at United Nations headquarters, Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
The United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks during the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly at United Nations headquarters, Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa)
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks during the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly at United Nations headquarters, Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen attends the Partnership for Multilateralism Summit on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) at the UN headquarters, Monday, Sept. 21, 2026. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press via AP)
The flag of the United Nations flies during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) at the UN headquarters, Monday, Sept. 21, 2026. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press via AP)
People pose as they arrive for the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) at the UN headquarters, Monday, Sept. 21, 2026. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press via AP)
The United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks during an interview with The Associated Press at the United Nations headquarters, Thursday, Sept. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/David R Martin)
