In the film Hotel Rwanda saved 1,200 people, he was convicted at home – SME.sk

KIGALI. A court in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, ruled on Monday judgment over government activist and critic Paul Rusesabagin, whose actions during the genocide in the country served as the theme for the film Hotel Rwanda.

The court found him “guilty of terrorist financing.” The AFP agency informed about it.

“(Rusesabagina) founded the terrorist organization Front Liberation Front (FLN), which attacked Rwanda, and financially supported terrorist activities,” said Judge Beatrice Mukamurenzi.

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The amount of the sentence was not known immediately after the judgment.

Prosecutors last month demanded a life sentence for Rusesabagin.

The 60-year-old former manager of the Hôtel des Mille Collines in Kigali was made famous by a 2004 Hollywood film about rescuing more than 1,200 people who took refuge in his hotel during the genocide in Rwanda. The genocide in Rwanda in 1994 claimed more than 800,000 lives, most of them from the Tutsi ethnic minority.

Rusesabagina himself, a member of the Hutu ethnic group, later became a major critic of Rwandan President Paul Kagame and has lived in exile in the United States and Belgium since 1996.

He was detained in August last year after a plane he flew to Burundi landed in Kigali, Rwanda, what his supporters called a hijacking.

His family, relatives and team of advocates rejected the whole process as political. Since March, Rusesabagina has refused to attend the hearing. He also did not take part in Monday’s sentencing.