Paul Rusesabagina looks on as he sits with some of his co-accused at the Supreme Court in Kigali, Rwanda, on Feb. 17, 2021, where he denied charges of being associated with an armed group. On Friday, the Rwandan government said it commuted his sentence.
Simon Wohlfahrt/AFP via Getty Images
Simon Wohlfahrt/AFP via Getty Images
The man who was celebrated as a hero in the movie Hotel Rwanda for saving lives during the Rwanda genocide is about to be released from prison. Rwanda’s government has commuted the sentence against Paul Rusesabagina.
The 68-year-old U.S. resident and Belgian citizen will be able to return to the United States, which has been pushing for his release.
Rusesabagina was a hotel manager during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. He rose to fame when Hollywood released the film, where he was played by Don Cheadle, about his actions to protect Tutsis, who sought refuge at the hotel from Hutu death squads. He was credited with protecting and saving the lives of more than 1,000 people during that period.
Actor Don Cheadle (left) and real-life inspiration for the film Hotel Rwanda, Paul Rusesabagina, attend the movie’s premiere on Dec. 2, 2004, in Los Angeles.
Carlo Allegri/Getty Images
Carlo Allegri/Getty Images
He’s been an outspoken critic of Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame and was sentenced in 2021 on terrorism charges. His family says he was kidnapped in 2020 after he boarded a plane in Dubai that he believed was taking him to Burundi.
But the flight landed in the Rwandan capital Kigali instead. Upon his arrival there, he was arrested and put on trial over his alleged ties to an armed wing of the Rwandan Movement for Democratic Change, a group that opposes Kagame’s rule. Rusesabagina denies the claim.
The case has been an irritant in Rwanda’s relations with Washington. Secretary of State Antony Blinken raised the case with Kagame on a trip last year.
“This is the result of a shared desire to reset US-Rwanda relationship,” Stephanie Nyombayire, spokesperson of Rwanda’s President Kagame, wrote on Twitter.
The government of Qatar was also involved in the negotiations to release him. Rusesabagina will fly to the Qatari capital of Doha from Kigali on Saturday and then on to the U.S. The sentences of 18 other prisoners who were convicted alongside him have also been commuted.
Rusesabagina was awarded the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom by then-President George W. Bush in 2005. He is expected to return home to his family in Texas.
“The family of Paul Rusesabagina is pleased to hear the news about his release,” a spokesperson for the family said in a statement. “They hope to reunite with him soon.”