(Kigali) The 25-year prison sentence for “terrorism” of opponent Paul Rusesabagina, the hero who inspired the film Hotel Rwanda, has been “commuted”, a government spokeswoman told AFP on Friday. Rwandan.
Rusesabagina’s September 2021 conviction was “commuted by presidential order”, spokeswoman Yolande Makolo said of the case, which has drawn international and human rights condemnation.
In May 2022, Washington considered that he was “unjustly detained” by Rwandan justice.
This news comes less than two weeks after an announcement by President Paul Kagame that “discussions” were underway regarding the imprisonment of Mr. Rusesabagina.
Supporters of the opponent believe that his trial was a sham marked by irregularities. And his family insisted on the 68-year-old’s declining health.
A court had upheld his conviction in May 2022, along with most of those of his 20 co-defendants who received sentences of three to 20 years in prison.
Paul Rusesabagina was made famous by the film Hotel Rwanda 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 Tutsis in 1994.
Opposing Paul Kagame for more than 20 years, whom he accused of authoritarianism and fueling anti-Hutu sentiment, Rusesabagina used his Hollywood fame to give a global echo to his positions.
Human rights advocates accuse Rwanda – ruled with an iron fist by Mr. Kagame since the end of the 1994 genocide in which 800,000 people were killed – of suppressing freedom of expression and opposition.
