Genocide savior denies violence
KIGALI, Rwanda — The man portrayed as a hero in the movie “Hotel Rwanda” admitted in court Friday that he backed a rebel group, but denied that he supported any violence or killings.
Paul Rusesabagina, in a pink prison uniform for his bail hearing, told the court in Kigali, the capital, that he helped to form the National Liberation
Front in order to assist Rwandan refugees, but said he never supported violence.
The judge postponed ruling on his application for bail until Oct. 2.
Rusesabagina, a Belgian citizen and U.S. permanent resident who has been a prominent critic of President Paul Kagame, is charged with 13 offenses that also include financing terrorism, complicity in murder, recruiting child soldiers, and forming a rebel group. If convicted, he faces a maximum of 25 years in prison.
Rusesabagina, 66, has lived outside Rwanda since 1996 but on Aug. 31, he suddenly appeared in the East African country in handcuffs.
Earlier this month, he described how he disappeared while visiting Dubai and then turned up days later in Rwanda, a country his family says he’d never return to voluntarily. Speaking to the New York Times with Rwandan authorities present, he said he thought the private plane he boarded in Dubai was going to Burundi where he had planned to speak to churches at a pastor’s invitation.
Rusesabagina is credited with saving more than 1,000 lives during Rwanda’s 1994 genocide that killed some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus. For his efforts he was awarded the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom. But he has faced criticism from Rwandan authorities in the years since he began speaking out against alleged human rights abuses by Kagame’s government.