The family of Paul Rusesabagina, a businessman whose role in saving more than 1,000 lives inspired the film Hotel Rwanda, have accused the east African country’s authorities of kidnapping the 66-year-old from Dubai.
On Monday, Rusesabagina, who is an outspoken critic of President Paul Kagame, was paraded in handcuffs by Rwandan investigators before media in the capital, Kigali, accused of terrorism-related crimes.
Rusesabagina was the general manager of a luxury hotel in Kigali during the 1994 genocide, in which an estimated 800,000 people were killed with knives, clubs and other weapons. The vast majority of the victims were from the Tutsi minority, though some Hutu moderates also died.
The 2004 film told the story of how Rusesabagina, a middle-class Hutu married to a Tutsi, used both his influence and bribery to save the lives of 1,200 people who sheltered at the Mille Collines hotel in the capital during the worst of the massacres.
Rwandan authorities have said Rusesabagina was arrested on what they described as “an international warrant” and is accused of being “the founder, leader, sponsor and member of violent, armed, extremist terror outfits … operating out of various places in the region and abroad.”
Rusesabagina’s adopted daughter, Carine Kanimba, said she last spoke with him before he flew to Dubai last week but she did not know the exact nature of his trip.
Kanimba said his family was informed early Monday that he was being held in Rwanda but they have not been able to speak to him.
“We’re hoping to secure his release quickly and safely,” she said. “What they’re accusing him of is all made up. There is no evidence to what they’re claiming. We know this is a wrongful arrest.”
Another daughter, Anaise, told the BBC World Service radio that her father had last called them on Thursday from Dubai.
“I believe he was kidnapped because he would never go to Rwanda on his own will,” Anaise told the BBC.
Rusesabagina lives in Belgium and the US, where he was honoured by a Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honour, by the then president George W Bush in 2005.
He has been an increasingly outspoken critic of Rwanda’s president, Paul Kagame, and has been accused by Rwandan prosecutors of links to rebel groups based in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo, blamed by officials for cross-border attacks.
In 2010, Rusesabagina spoke out against the jailing of the opposition leader Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, and four years ago announced a political campaign against the Rwandan government, which he called a dictatorship.
A statement from Rwandan investigators described charges including terrorism, arson, kidnap and “murder perpetrated against unarmed, innocent Rwandan civilians on Rwandan territory”.
The details of the detention of Rusesabagina remain unclear. Paul Kagame, the president of Rwanda, maintains a close relationship with Dubai, and the state-owned RwandAir has direct flights between Dubai and Kigali.
Rwanda’s government in the past has been accused of hunting down dissidents overseas. South African investigators have said the government was directly involved in the killing of Patrick Karegeya, an outspoken critic, in Johannesburg in 2014.
“Any person still alive who may be plotting against Rwanda, whoever they are, will pay the price,” Kagame said after the killing.
Rusesabagina has previously denied the Rwandan government’s charges that he financially supports Rwandan rebels. He has called Kagame’s government a dictatorship and urged Western countries to press the government to respect human rights.
Kagame is largely credited with the development and stability that Rwanda has experienced since the 1994 genocide. But he is also accused of extreme authoritarianism, including pursuing dissidents who have fled the country.
In 2017, Kagame won a landslide victory in a presidential election, securing a third term in office with almost 99% of votes cast.
The Rwandan government disputes Rusesabagina’s story about saving people during the genocide, and Ibuka, a Rwandan genocide survivors’ group, has in the past said that Rusesabagina, who runs a humanitarian foundation, exaggerated his own role in helping hotel refugees escape the genocide.
“I believe it is a travesty that a human rights champion like Paul Rusesabagina should be captured, detained and held in the way he is being held,” said Katrina Lantos Swett, president of the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice. “This should raise a lot of deep concern and scepticism on behalf of a lot of people.”
