A famed genocide hero who later became a vocal critic of long-ruling Rwandan President Paul Kagame has been sentenced to 25 years in prison on terrorist charges following a trial widely regarded as unfair.
The US and Belgian governments and human-rights organizations like Amnesty International questioned the fairness of the trial that resulted in Paul Rusesabagina's guilty judgment on Monday. According to his family, the 67-year-old man, who is in poor condition, was virtually sentenced to death.
Mr. Rusesabagina is a former hotel manager who sheltered over 1,200 individuals fleeing the genocide at his opulent hotel, a story that inspired the Hollywood film Hotel Rwanda. The 1994 genocide killed an estimated 800,000 people.
Mr. Rusesabagina, a Belgian citizen and permanent resident of the United States who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005, was enticed onto a private plane in Dubai last year by a forged invitation to speak at Burundian churches. He was transferred to Rwanda on an aircraft covertly chartered by the Rwandan government, where he claims he was tortured for days in prison.
It was referred to as a kidnapping by his relatives. According to human-rights organizations, it was an illegal "enforced disappearance." However, a panel of Rwandan judges dismissed the kidnapping lawsuit in one sentence during a six-hour hearing on Monday. Judge Beatrice Mukamurenzi stated, "The court rejected that point because there was no force, abduction, or violation of any country's sovereignty."
The judges found Mr. Rusesabagina guilty of eight terrorism-related charges for forming a Rwandan opposition movement with ties to the National Liberation Front, or FLN, accused of killing nine Rwandan civilians in attacks in 2018 and 2019.
His supporters said he had no authority over the FLN and that it was a self-defense group for Rwandan civilians threatened by security troops. They claim there is no independent evidence that the FLN carried out the attacks or even happened.
Mr. Rusesabagina has been boycotting the trial since March and will not be present at Monday's verdict. Mr. Kagame, who had declared before the trial that the former hotelier was a criminal with blood on his hands, arranged the conclusion, according to his relatives.
“We knew the verdict would be ‘guilty' on some or all of the false charges from the day he was kidnapped,” the family stated in a statement on Monday.
“For nearly two decades, he has condemned Paul Kagame's human-rights violations. During that time, Kagame made it apparent that one of his key priorities was to quiet our father. He is enslaved by a dictator.”
According to Philippe Larochelle, a Canadian lawyer on the defense team, Mr. Rusesabagina made statements in jail when he was tortured and deprived of legal representation. According to him, there was no hearing on the admissibility of those statements.
He also claimed that the trial depended on prosecution witnesses who had previously given misleading testimony in the trial of another opposition figure.
Rwandan officials have admitted that they intercepted Mr. Rusesabagina's and his defense lawyers' contacts. This, according to legal experts, is a violation of his rights.
“This was a show trial, not a fair judicial inquiry,” said Geoffrey Robertson, a human-rights lawyer for the Clooney Foundation for Justice, who monitored the proceedings. “The evidence presented by the prosecution against him was revealed but not challenged.”
Amnesty International cited “numerous fair trial violations” in the case, beginning with his “arrest under false pretenses and unlawful transfer to Rwanda,” according to the organization.
According to Human Rights Watch, the case was "riddled with irregularities and evidence of political interference,."
According to an investigation, both organizations stated that the Rwandan government had used Israeli spyware to target thousands of Rwandan activists and journalists, including Mr. Rusesabagina's daughter, Carine Kanimba.
Sophie Wilmès, Belgium's Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister, claimed the trial was not fair or equitable, "particularly in terms of the defense's rights." She said in a statement on Monday that the presumption of innocence was not upheld.
The United States is disturbed about the verdict, according to Ned Price, a spokesman for the US State Department. “The alleged lack of fair trial guarantees casts doubt on the verdict's fairness,” he stated.
The Rusesabagina case has brought attention to the Kagame government's ability to arrest or kill Rwandan dissidents in exile outside Rwanda's borders.
Many Rwandan dissidents have been attacked in South Africa, Kenya, Uganda, Mozambique, and other countries over the last two decades, allegedly by Rwandan security agents.
This year's most recent suspected cases occurred in Mozambique, where a Rwandan journalist was detained, and a prominent Rwandan refugee leader was murdered.
In a study released this year, the U.S.-based research and advocacy group Freedom House stated, "Rwandan transnational repression is exceptionally broad in terms of tactics, targets, and geographic reach."
“Digital threats, spyware attacks, family intimidation and harassment, mobility controls, physical intimidation, assault, detention, rendition, and assassination are all commonplace for Rwandans living abroad. Since 2014, the Rwandan government has targeted Rwandans in at least seven countries.”
