‘Hotel Rwanda’ hero at risk of torture in jail
THE legal team for Hotel Rwanda hero Paul Rusesabagina has filed a complaint with the UN special rapporteur on torture asserting that he faces an “immediate risk” of cruel treatment as he remains cut off from lawyers, consular officials and his family more than a week after he appeared in handcuffs in Rwanda.
The complaint filed this week with Nils Melzer asks for an immediate investigation to make sure Rusesabagina, long an outspoken critic of the country’s government, “is still alive” after being accused of terrorism.
President Paul Kagame indicated on Sunday that Rusesabagina might have been tricked into boarding a plane to a country he hasn’t lived in since 1996. “It was actually flawless!” Kagame said in a national broadcast, suggesting that “he brought himself – even if he may not have intended it”.
The president did not say how Rusesabagina was taken from Dubai, where he last spoke with his family, to Rwanda. The family of the 66-yearold, a Belgian citizen and US permanent resident, has said he would never knowingly board a plane for Rwanda.
The legal complaint calls on the United Arab Emirates, which has not responded to requests for comment, to show it was “not complicit” by sharing “all evidence concerning Mr Rusesabagina’s recent visit to Dubai, including video footage of him at the hotel and airport and information on the plane that transported him to Kigali”.
Rwanda accuses Rusesabagina of leading a terrorist group that has killed Rwandans. It points to a video posted online in late 2018 in which he expresses support for an armed wing of his opposition political platform and says, “The time has come for us to use any means possible to bring about change in Rwanda, as all political means have been tried and failed.”
Rusesabagina in the past has denied accusations that he financially supports Rwandan rebels, saying
he is being targeted for criticising Kagame’s administration over human rights abuses.
Rusesabagina became famous for protecting more than 1 000 people as a hotel manager during Rwanda’s 1994 genocide in which 800 000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed.
His detention has prompted concern among human rights activists that this was the latest example of the Rwandan government targeting critics beyond its borders. Yesterday, the International Committee of the Red Cross confirmed it didn’t have access to visit Rusesabagira.
Kagame on Sunday said Rusesabagina “will have to pay for these crimes”. The complaint says that statement gives police and prison authorities “license to take justice into their own hands”.