HOUSTON, US
The man who inspired the film “Hotel Rwanda” and was freed by Rwanda last week from a terrorism sentence returned Wednesday to the United States and joined his family after being held for more than two years.
Paul Rusesabagina’s arrival in
San Antonio was announced by his daughter Carine Kanimba, who tweeted that “our
family is finally reunited today.”
White House national security
adviser Jake Sullivan tweeted that “we’re glad to have him back on U.S. soil.”
Rusesabagina’s plane first
touched down in Houston and the 68-year-old would visit a military hospital in
San Antonio, according to a person familiar with the matter, who spoke on
condition of anonymity to discuss internal planning.
Rusesabagina, a U.S. legal
resident and Belgian citizen, was credited with sheltering more than 1,000
ethnic Tutsis at the hotel he managed during Rwanda’s 1994 genocide in which
over 800,000 Tutsis and Hutus who tried to protect them were killed. He
received the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom for his efforts.
Rusesabagina disappeared in
2020 during a visit to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and appeared days
later in Rwanda in handcuffs. His family alleged he was kidnapped and taken to
Rwanda against his will to stand trial.
In 2021, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison after being convicted in Rwanda on eight charges including membership in a terrorist group, murder and abduction following the widely criticized trial.
Last week, Rwanda’s government
commuted his sentence after diplomatic intervention on his behalf by the United
States. On Monday, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby
told journalists that Rusesabagina was in Doha, Qatar, and would make his way
back to the U.S.
Rusesabagina had been accused
of supporting the armed wing of his opposition political platform, the Rwandan
Movement for Democratic Change. The armed group claimed some responsibility for
attacks in 2018 and 2019 in southern Rwanda in which nine Rwandans died.
Rusesabagina testified at
trial that he helped to form the armed group to assist refugees but
said he never supported violence — and sought to distance himself from
its deadly attacks.
Rusesabagina has
asserted that his arrest was in response to his criticism of longtime President
Paul Kagame over alleged human rights abuses. Kagame’s government has repeatedly
denied targeting dissenting voices with arrests and extrajudicial killings.
Rusesabagina became a public
critic of Kagame and left Rwanda in 1996, first living in Belgium and then the
U.S.
His arrest was a source of
friction with the U.S. and others at a time when Rwanda’s government has also
been under pressure over tensions with neighboring Congo and Britain’s plan to
deport asylum-seekers to the small east African nation.
Rights activists and others
had been urging Rwandan authorities to free him, saying his health was failing.
In October, the ailing
Rusesabagina signed a letter to Kagame that was posted on the justice
ministry’s website, saying that if he was granted pardon and released to live
in the U.S., he would hold no personal or political ambitions and “I will leave
questions regarding Rwandan politics behind me.”
Last year, U.S. Secretary of
State Antony Blinken met with Kagame in Rwanda and discussed the case.
Kirby, the White House
National Security Council spokesman, had said Sullivan personally engaged in
the case, “really doing the final heavy lifting to get Paul released and to get
him on his way home.”
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