Kigali:
Rwanda said on Friday it had commuted the 25-year sentence against ailing “Hotel Rwanda” hero Paul Rusesabagina, a fiercely vocal critic of President Paul Kagame who has spent more than 900 days behind bars.
The announcement comes less than two weeks after Kagame said Kigali was working to solve Rusesabagina’s case, which has been a source of concern for the West and global rights groups.
“The prison sentences of Paul Rusesabagina and (co-defendant) Callixte Nsabimana have been commuted by presidential order, after consideration of their leniency applications,” government spokeswoman Yolande Makolo told AFP, without disclosing when they would be released.
The sentences of another 18 people convicted of terrorist offenses alongside Rusesabagina in September 2021 have also been commuted, she said, highlighting the role of the United States and Qatar in the case.
But Makolo added: “No one should have any illusions about what this means, as there is consensus that serious crimes have been committed, for which they have been convicted.”
Rusesabagina, now 68, was jailed after a trial his supporters denounced as a sham plagued by irregularities. According to the Free Rusesabagina website, he has now been detained for 939 days.
His family have long warned of Rusesabagina’s deteriorating health and have expressed fears that he could die in prison.
A court in May 2022 upheld the sentences against Rusesabagina and most of his 20 co-defendants who received between three and 20 years in prison for supporting an armed group.
Rusesabagina was the manager of a hotel in Kigali and is credited with helping to save about 1,200 lives during the 1994 genocide, in which about 800,000 people were massacred, mostly Tutsis but also moderate Hutus.
Rusesabagina, whose story inspired the 2004 Oscar-nominated film “Hotel Rwanda” starring American actor Don Cheadle, became a vocal critic of Kagame and founded his own party.
He emerged as a staunch government critic whose tirades against Kagame led to him being treated as an enemy of the state.
Rights groups accuse Rwanda, ruled with an iron fist by Kagame since the end of the genocide, of undermining freedom of expression and opposition.
– ‘Unjustly detained’ –
Speaking via video link at the Global Security Forum in the Qatari capital Doha on March 13, Kagame had signaled a possible softening in Rusesabagina’s approach in Rwanda.
“There is discussion, we are looking at all possible ways to solve the issue without jeopardizing the fundamental aspects of that case. I think there will be a way forward,” he said at the time.
Makolo said on Friday that Rwanda “notes the constructive role of the US government in creating the conditions for dialogue on this issue, as well as the facilitation by the State of Qatar.”
Last year, the United States said Rusesabagina – who is a Belgian national and holds a US green card – was “unjustly detained” after a plane carrying him to Burundi was diverted to Rwanda in August 2020.
Also in 2022, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention issued an advisory concluding that Rusesabagina had been “kidnapped” and his detention was “arbitrary”.
Rusesabagina’s family said he was tricked into traveling from his home in the US with the promise of work in Burundi and tortured while in detention.
He was accused of supporting the National Liberation Front (FLN), a rebel group responsible for attacks in Rwanda in 2018 and 2019 that killed nine people.
Rusesabagina denied any involvement in the attacks, but was a founding member of the Rwandan Movement for Democratic Change (MRCD), an opposition group of which the FLN is seen as the armed wing.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and rights groups have raised the matter with Rwanda, although Kagame said last year the United States could not “bully” him into releasing him.
Rusesabagina’s family filed a $400 million lawsuit in the United States last year against Kagame, the Rwandan government and other figures alleging kidnapping and torture of him.
In 2005 Rusesabagina received the highest US civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom
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