Washington formally considers that the hero of "Hotel Rwanda" is "unjustly detained"

The United States now formally believes that Paul Rusesabagina, the hero who inspired the film "

", is "

" by Rwandan justice, a spokesman for American diplomacy said Thursday.

Paul Rusesabagina is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence for “

” after a trial described by his relatives as a “

” full of irregularities.

The Rwandan Court of Appeal confirmed in early April the sentence of the 67-year-old opponent, who is ill.

Read alsoThe hero of “Hotel Rwanda” claims 400 million dollars in Kigali

After his first conviction in September, Washington had already expressed concern that he had not received a fair trial.

The US State Department has now formally classified his case as one of those "

", a spokesman told AFP.

This decision is based "

", he added, specifying that the United States did not pronounce on "

".

As a concrete consequence, American diplomacy should now openly plead for his release with the Kigali authorities.

Paul Rusesabagina was made famous by the film "

", released in 2004, which tells how this moderate Hutu who ran the Hotel des Mille Collines in the Rwandan capital saved more than 1000 people during the genocide of the Tutsi in 1994.

Opposing Rwandan President Paul Kagame for more than 20 years, whom he has accused of authoritarianism and fueling anti-Hutu sentiment, the former hotelier has used his Hollywood fame to give a global echo to his positions.

He had lived since 1996 in exile in the United States and Belgium, before being arrested in Kigali in August 2020 in troubled circumstances, when he got off a plane he thought was bound for Burundi.