US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and rights groups have raised the case with Rwanda, although Kagame said last year that the United States could not 'bully' him into ordering a release. ![]() Rusesabagina denied any involvement in the attacks, but was a founder of the Rwandan Movement for Democratic Change (MRCD), an opposition group of which the FLN is seen as the armed wing. He was accused of supporting the National Liberation Front (FLN), a rebel group which is blamed for attacks inside Rwanda in 20 that killed nine people. Rusesabagina's family said he was tricked into travelling from his US home with the promise of work in Burundi and that he has been tortured while in detention. Blinken and rights groups have raised the case with Rwanda, although Kagame said last year that the United States could not 'bully' him into ordering a release US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (file photo). ![]() Last year, the United States said Rusesabagina - who holds Belgian citizenship and a US Green Card - was 'wrongfully detained' after a plane carrying him to Burundi was diverted to Rwanda in August 2020.Īlso in 2022, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention issued an opinion concluding that Rusesabagina had been 'abducted' and that his detention was 'arbitrary'. Makolo said on Friday that Rwanda 'notes the constructive role of the US government in creating conditions for dialogue on this issue, as well as the facilitation provided by the State of Qatar'. I think there is going to be a way forward,' he said at the time. 'There is discussion, there is looking at all possible ways of resolving the issue without compromising the fundamental aspects of that case. Speaking via video link at the Global Security Forum in the Qatari capital Doha on March 13, Kagame had signalled a possible softening in Rwanda's approach on Rusesabagina's case. Rights groups accuse Rwanda - ruled with an iron fist by Kagame since the end of the genocide - of cracking down on free speech and opposition. Bush presents the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civil award, to Rwandan hotel manager Paul Rusesabagina in the East Room of the White House in Washington on November 9, 2005 He emerged as a staunch government critic whose tirades against Kagame led him to be treated as an enemy of the state. Rusesabagina, whose story inspired the Oscar-nominated 2004 movie Hotel Rwanda starring US actor Don Cheadle, became a vocal critic of Kagame, founding his own party. Rusesabagina was the manager of a Kigali hotel and is credited with helping to save about 1,200 lives during the 1994 genocide in which about 800,000 people were slaughtered, mainly Tutsis but also moderate Hutus. His family has long warned about Rusesabagina's deteriorating health and has voiced fears he could die in prison.Ī court in May 2022 upheld the sentences against Rusesabagina and most of his 20 co-defendants who were jailed for between three and 20 years for backing an armed group. He has now been detained for 939 days, according to the Free Rusesabagina website. Rusesabagina was jailed after a trial his supporters denounced as a sham that was plagued with irregularities. Rwanda said it has commuted the 25-year jail sentence against Paul Rusesabagina, 68, a fiercely outspoken critic of Kagameīut Makolo added: 'No one should be under any illusion about what this means, as there is consensus that serious crimes were committed, for which they were convicted.' ![]() Rwanda President Paul Kagame (file photo).
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