Rwandan government opponent Paul Rusesabagina will be released early from prison on Saturday morning because his sentence “has been commuted by presidential order following a request for leniency”. A spokesman for the Rwandan government said this to various international news agencies on Friday. Rusesabagina was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2021 for terrorism. His family spoke of a ‘show trial’.
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Rusasabagina became known because, as manager of the Mille Collines hotel in the Rwandan capital of Kigali, he sheltered more than 1,200 Tutsis during the 1994 genocide, saving their lives. This was the inspiration for the movie Hotel Rwanda. Rusesabagina fled Rwanda in 1996 because he came into conflict with the new regime led by Paul Kagame. He lived successively in Belgium and in the United States. From there he led a coalition of opposition groups against Kagame, who has been the president of Rwanda since 2000.
In 2020 he was arrested when he wanted to fly from the United States to Burundi via Dubai because he was invited to speak there. The invitation turned out to be a trap: his plane did not land in Burundi, but in neighboring Rwanda. A few days later, he appeared handcuffed in Kigali, where he was detained on suspicion of terrorism. Rusesabagina believes he was arrested because of his criticism of Kagame. Human rights organizations worldwide also criticize Kagame for silencing critics. However, the government denies arresting people for their political views
Also read this interview with Rusesabagina’s daughter: Carine Kanimba: ‘My father had no chance of a fair trial’