PAUL Rusesabagina, who was portrayed as a hero in the Hollywood film “Hotel Rwanda” about the Rwandan genocide, and is serving a 25-year sentence on terrorism charges, will be released early on Saturday, the Rwandan government said.
The announcement that his sentence had been commuted followed intense diplomacy by the United States, where Rusesabagina has permanent residency.
Washington’s historically close ties with Rwanda have been strained by the case and by U.S. allegations, denied by Kigali, that Rwanda has sent troops into neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo and supports rebels there.
Stephanie Nyombayire, spokesperson for Rwandan President Paul Kagame, tweeted that the release was “the result of a shared desire to reset US-Rwanda relationship”.
Rusesabagina, 68, was sentenced in September 2021 over his ties to a group opposed to Kagame that has an armed wing. He denied the charges and boycotted the trial, which he and his supporters called a political sham.
He also said he had been kidnapped from Dubai in 2019 and returned to Rwanda by force. Kagame denied any abduction, but suggested Rusesabagina had been tricked in Dubai into boarding a plane to Rwanda.
Washington designated him as “wrongly detained”, partly because of what it called a lack of guarantees of a fair trial.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Kagame during a visit to Kigali in August and “spoke a great deal about the road map to Paul’s eventual release,” said a U.S. official familiar with the matter who declined to be named, adding that the intervention helped secure the early release.
A U.S. congressional aide familiar with the negotiations, who declined to be named, noted that the case had resonance far beyond Africa, adding: “I think it became clear to the Rwandans that this irritant was not going to go away.”
“Hotel Rwanda” portrays Rusesabagina’s successful effort to save more than 1,000 refugees, including his family, during the genocide in 1994 by sheltering them in the besieged hotel that he managed in the capital Kigali.
