The hero of the movie “Hotel Rwanda”, Paul Rusesabagina, who saved hundreds of Tutsis during the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, has been found guilty of terrorism.
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He was sentenced to 25 years in prison, a court in Rwanda’s capital Kigali said on Monday.
Rusesabagina is best known for saving the lives of around 1,200 people in the Hotel des Milles Colines in Kigali, of which he was director.
He was found guilty of terrorism-related activities by founding and financing a group that was behind several deadly attacks in 2018 and 2019.
The background to the indictment is his work as one of the country’s sharpest critics of President Paul Kagame’s authoritarian regime.
He made the criticism for years from abroad, but suddenly became famous when he appeared in Rwanda last year, handcuffed and dressed in prison clothes. His family says he was kidnapped by Rwandan authorities.
It was his actions during the 1994 genocide, when around 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed in a few months, that inspired the film “Hotel Rwanda”.
When the genocide began in 1994, the moderate Hutu Rusesabagina was imprisoned in the hotel with his family and hundreds of guests, who were mostly Tutsis like his wife, who sought refuge there.
He kept the killers away with beer and used his connections to provide food, while the guests drank water from the swimming pool.
After the genocide was over and the regime overthrown by Kagame, he was soon disappointed with the new Tutsi-led government. He accused Kagame of authoritarian tendencies and moved in 1996 to Belgium, where he became a citizen, and since then the United States.
His family claims he is innocent and that he is a political prisoner. They say he was abducted by the regime when a plane he thought was on its way to Burundi, a country in Rwanda.
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