Rwandan activist Paul Rusesabagina, who rose to prominence after the release of the film “Hotel Rwanda”, has been released thanks to the assistance of the US authorities, a senior US administration official told reporters on Friday.
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“We are grateful that Mr. Rusesabagina was released. He was taken, accompanied by a representative of the American authorities, to the Qatari embassy,” the White House spokesman said.
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As the official recalled, the US authorities regularly raised the topic of the activist’s trial in their contacts with the Rwandan authorities, emphasizing that they consider his detention unlawful. The United States has repeatedly publicly made it clear that it does not see sufficient guarantees for a fair trial of the activist.
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The release of Rusesabagina was largely made possible thanks to negotiations with the participation of US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, which he held during a recent African tour. The administration official added that US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan also worked on getting the activist out of prison in his contacts with his Rwandan counterpart.
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Rusesabagina is expected to travel to Doha in the next few days, from where she will subsequently fly to the United States, where he has a residence permit. At the same time, according to a White House spokesman, Washington did not make any concessions to the government of Rwanda on the release of the activist.
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Rusesabagina was arrested in his home country in August 2020 immediately after arriving from Dubai. In 2021, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison for participating in the activities of a terrorist group that carried out raids in Rwanda, killing people and stealing property. During the proceedings, it was alleged that the convicted person used the WhatsApp application to coordinate the purchase of weapons to carry out terrorist attacks by militants of the FLN group, the armed wing of the Rwandan Movement for Democratic Change, which Rusesabagina is considered to be the founder of.
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The film “Hotel” Rwanda “was filmed in 2004 based on the memoirs of Rusesabagina himself. The film tells how a hotel manager in the Rwandan capital of Kigali during the civil war was able to save more than 1.2 thousand Tutsi and Hutu refugees from mutual extermination. The film was nominated for Academy Award, including Best Screenplay. In 2008, the book “Hotel Rwanda, or How the Tutsi Genocide Was Seen from Hollywood” was published, which revisited Rusesabagina’s role in rescuing refugees. One of its authors was an adviser to the Rwandan President Paul Kagame Rusesabagina denies the version presented in the book.
