From the BBC:
“Paul Rusesabagina: Hotel Rwanda hero
set to be freed”
(Paul Rusesabagina photographed in
court in February 2021)
Paul Rusesabagina, a former hotel
manager portrayed as a hero in the Hollywood film Hotel Rwanda, is to be
released from prison in Kigali. Two years ago, he was sentenced to 25 years for
terrorism by a Rwandan court in what supporters called a sham trial. A
government spokesperson said Mr Rusesabagina's sentence had been "commuted
by presidential order".
Mr Rusesabagina, 68, is credited with
saving some 1,200 people during the 1994 genocide. In a statement his family
told the BBC: "We are pleased to hear the news about Paul's release. The
family is hopeful to reunite with him soon." There have been international
calls for Mr Rusesabagina's release, especially from the United States, where
he had lived since 2009. The Biden administration has said he was
"wrongfully detained". His family say the Rwandan government lured
him from Texas, where he had permanent residency, back to Rwanda in 2020. Mr
Rusesabagina left Rwanda in 1996. His story remained largely unknown for a
decade, while he worked as a taxi driver in the Belgian capital, Brussels. It
was featured in a section of journalist Philip Gourevitch's 1998 book about the
genocide, but it was the 2004 Hollywood movie, where he was played by Don
Cheadle, that brought him global attention.
The Rwandan genocide lasted 100 days
from April 1994, when 800,000 people, mostly from the Tutsi ethnic group, were
slaughtered by extremists from the Hutu community. Mr Rusesabagina - a hotel
manager at the time - protected some 1,200 people from the violence, after they
sought shelter in the building. The following year he was awarded the
Presidential Medal of Freedom by then-US President George W Bush for his
efforts. But he became a fierce critic of Rwanda's President Paul Kagame. In a
2018 video message, Mr Rusesabagina called for a regime change, saying that
"the time has come for us to use any means possible to bring about change
in Rwanda".
He was arrested in 2020, when,
according to his supporters, a private jet he believed would take him to
Burundi, instead landed in the Rwandan capital Kigali. In September 2021 he was
found guilty of backing a rebel group behind deadly attacks in 2018 and 2019 in
Rwanda. Mr Rusesabagina was freed alongside Callixte Nsabimana, spokesman of the
Rwanda Movement for Democratic Change - an opposition political party. A
spokesperson for the Rwandan government said: "No-one should be under any
illusion about what this means, as there is consensus that serious crimes were
committed, for which they were convicted. "Under Rwandan law, commutation
of sentence does not extinguish the underlying conviction. "Rwanda notes
the constructive role of the US government in creating conditions for dialogue
on this issue, as well as the facilitation provided by the state of
Qatar."
^ Clearly this was all a Sham by the
Rwandan Government. ^
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