Life imprisonment was required Thursday against Paul Rusesabagina, hero of the film "
Hotel Rwanda
" tried since mid-February for "
terrorism
" in Kigali in a trial described as political by the defense of this opponent to President Paul Kagame, reports Friday a judicial source.
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Paul Rusesabagina was made famous by this film released in 2004, which tells how the former director of the Hotel des Mille Collines in Kigali, a moderate Hutu, saved more than 1,000 people during the 1994 genocide that killed 800,000 Rwandans, mainly Tutsi. Fierce critic of the regime of President Paul Kagame, he is today targeted by nine charges, including that of terrorism, for his alleged support for the National Liberation Front (FLN), a rebel group accused of having led in recent years deadly attacks in Rwanda. He is on trial with 20 other co-accused.
Paul Rusesabagina participated in the founding in 2017 of the Rwandan Movement for Democratic Change (MRCD), of which the FLN is considered to be the armed wing. But he has always denied his involvement in attacks in 2018 and 2019 that left nine dead. “
We have shown that every act of Rusesabagina was criminal in nature with the intention of committing acts of terrorism,
” said one of the prosecutors, Jean Pierre Habarurema. “
As a leader, supporter and supporter of the MRCD / FLN, he encouraged and enabled combatants to commit these terrorist acts against Rwanda. Even if he did not actively participate in these attacks, he is considered to have played a role simply by supporting these fighters,
”he said.
On the contrary, his defense and his relatives estimated, in a press release from the Hotel Rwanda Foundation, that “
the Rwandan government presented no evidence
” during the four months of the trial, described as a “
farce
” intended to “
silence him.
". They have constantly denounced a political trial and ill-treatment. They also accuse the Rwandan regime of having him kidnapped. Paul Rusesabagina had been living in exile since 1996 in the United States and Belgium, countries from which he obtained nationality. He was arrested at the end of August in Rwanda in troubled circumstances, when a plane he thought was bound for Burundi got off. In an interview with Al-Jazeera at the end of February, the Rwandan Minister of Justice indicated that the government had financed the operation.
