Paul Rusesabagina, the prominent dissident who was portrayed in the Oscar-nominated movie Hotel Rwanda was found guilty on Monday of forming an armed terrorist group in a monthslong case that drew international condemnation after government officials boasted about having tricked him into returning to Rwanda.
Mr. Rusesabagina was once praised for sheltering more than 1,200 people in the hotel he managed during Rwanda’s 1994 genocide. But he gradually became one of the most high-profile critics of Rwanda’s longtime leader, Paul Kagame, calling out the president for his increasingly repressive rule. Mr. Kagame in turn accused Mr. Rusesabagina of profiting from invented stories about his heroism and of financing armed rebel groups to overthrow his government.
Mr. Rusesabagina was tried on nine charges, including forming an illegal armed group, kidnapping, arson and murder by Judge Beatrice Mukamurenzi.
Mr. Rusesabagina had boycotted the trial in March, saying he did not expect to find justice.
He explained he had been living in Texas until last year when he was deceived by Rwandan government operatives into getting on a plane in Dubai that brought him to Kigali the Rwandan capital. He says he was initially denied access to attorneys of his choosing, held in solitary confinement, tortured and interrogated in a secret detention center.
Mr. Rusesabagina and his lawyers have also contended that his rights to confidential communication and to prepare his defense have been repeatedly violated. The trial, which began in February, received widespread condemnation from Mr. Rusesabagina’s family, rights groups, legal associations, and European and American lawmakers. More than three dozen U.S. senators and representatives have urged Mr. Kagame to release him.
Mr. Rusesabagina was the manager of the luxurious Hotel des Mille Collines in Kigali when the 1994 genocide began. As Hutu militiamen killed as many as one million people, Mr. Rusesabagina turned the hotel into a haven for 1,268 Tutsis and moderate Hutus — using cash, alcohol and diplomacy to fend off the would-be killers.
But Mr. Rusesabagina’s 2006 memoir, An Ordinary Man, that put him in direct conflict with Kigali wrote that Mr. Kagame governed Rwanda for the benefit of a small group of elite Tutsis and that the Central African nation had a cosmetic democracy and a hollow system of justice.
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