Paul Rusesabagina, hero of the film "Hotel Rwanda" tried since mid-February in Kigali for
"terrorism"
, did not appear Wednesday at his trial and informed the prison authorities that he would no longer attend the hearings, believing that his right to defend oneself was violated.
To read also: Paul Rusesabagina, hero of "Hotel Rwanda" judged in Kigali: his daughter summons Belgium to intervene
Former director of the Hôtel des Mille Collines in Kigali, Paul Rusesabagina, 66, was made famous by a 2004 film recounting how he had, ten years earlier, saved more than 1,000 people during the Tutsi genocide.
This moderate Hutu then became a critic of the regime of Rwandan President Paul Kagame.
Living in exile since 1996 in the United States and Belgium, he was arrested at the end of August in Rwanda in troubled circumstances, when a plane he thought was destined for Burundi.
He and his lawyers denounce
"a kidnapping".
In an interview with
Al-Jazeera at the
end of February, the Rwandan Minister of Justice indicated that the government had financed the operation.
Paul Rusesabagina is targeted by nine charges, including that of terrorism.
He is notably prosecuted for having supported the National Liberation Front (FLN), a rebel group accused of deadly attacks in recent years in Rwanda.
In a letter read Wednesday at the hearing, the director of the prison where he is imprisoned informed the court that Paul Rusesabagina had indicated
"that he would never appear before this court again, not only today but even for future ones. hearings.
He said he was not waiting for justice from this court ”.
Paul Rusesabagina had announced on March 12 his intention to boycott the hearings, judging his rights
"violated"
after the rejection of his request to postpone his trial by at least six months in order to prepare his defense.
"Denial of genocide"
“Rusesabagina chose not to attend this hearing. He has the right to do so, but the fact of not appearing does not prevent the trial from continuing, ”
declared Antoine Muhima, one of the three judges.
His family say he did not have access to more than 5,000 pages of his file.
He is on trial with 20 other defendants,
"who all pleaded guilty and incriminated him," said
the spokesperson for the Hotel Rwanda Foundation, Kitty Kurth, also deploring that
"President Kagame publicly declared that Paul was guilty. , effectively canceling his right to the presumption of innocence ”.
On Wednesday one of the key witnesses for the prosecution, Michelle Martin, an American who worked with the Rusesabagina Foundation a decade ago, testified for three hours.
She claimed to have seen e-mails
"on the financing of rebel activities"
and accused Paul Rusesabagina of
"genocide denial"
.
She said that as soon as she discovered that he
"was involved in activities which seemed to be illegal"
, she
"had handed everything over to the American police".
She revealed that she had been an informant in a 2012 investigation against Paul Rusesabagina in the United States, but also that she had worked for Kigali, which had forced her to declare himself as a
"foreign agent"
to the authorities. American.
Her contracts, available on the US Department of Justice's website, show that she was paid by the Rwandan government for research on
"the (Rwandan) diaspora resulting from the
post-genocide
conflict"
.
Kitty Kurth accused Michelle Martin of having in the past, "
as a spy paid by the government of Rwanda",
pushed Paul Rusesabagina to approach a Rwandan Hutu rebel group, the FDLR.
Paul Rusesabagina admitted to having participated in the creation of the FLN, considered to be the armed wing of the Rwandan Movement for Democratic Change (MRCD) which he founded in 2017. But he denied any involvement in their attacks.