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| In this 2020 September file photo, “Hotel Rwanda” hero Paul Rusesabagina, in a pink inmate’s uniform, arrives from the Nyarugenge Prison with Rwanda Correctional Service (RCS) officers at the Nyarugenge Court of Justice in Kigali, Rwanda. AFP-Yonhap |
A Rwandan court has found Paul Rusesabagina, a former Rwandan hotel manager who sheltered hundreds of people during the nation’s 1994 genocide which later became the subject of a Hollywood film, guilty of terrorist acts.
The 67-year-old was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Rusesabagina had provided financial and logistical support to the armed wing of an opposition movement he co-founded, the court said during the sentencing in Kigali.
This armed wing, the National Liberation Front (FLN), was responsible for deadly attacks in Rwanda in 2018 and 2019, it added.?
“Based on the analysis of evidence presented and the outcome of the different interrogations, we find that there was a channel through which FLN was being funded. Rusesabagina was one of its funders,” Judge Beatrice Mukamurenzi told the court.
Rusesabagina became famous through the Hollywood film “Hotel Rwanda,” in which the story is told of how the hotel manager saved the lives of about 1,200 people during the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
At that time, more than 800,000 members of the Tutsi ethnic minority as well as moderate members of the Hutu majority were killed.
Later, Rusesabagina became a fierce critic of Rwandan President Paul Kagame and went into exile in Belgium.
According to his lawyer, he was kidnapped last year by the Rwandan authorities in Dubai to be tried.?
The European Parliament, US congressmen and human rights activists have strongly criticized the way he was arrested and the conditions of his detention.
“This was a show trial, rather than a fair judicial inquiry,” said Geoffrey Robertson, the Clooney Foundation for Justice’s expert monitoring the case. “The prosecution evidence against him was unveiled but not challenged.
“Given Mr Rusesabagina’s age and poor health, this severe sentence is likely to be a death sentence.” (dpa)
‘Hotel Rwanda’ hero given 25-year prison sentence in terrorism case
Source: Buhay Kapa PH
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