'Hotel Rwanda' hero freed from Rwandan prison

Paul Russisabagina, the man portrayed as the hero in the film Hotel Rwanda, was released from a Rwandan prison on Friday, according to US officials. His sentence was commuted following intense diplomacy by the United States. Russisabagina, who is a permanent resident of the US, was accompanied by a US embassy official as he was moved from prison to the residence of Qatar's ambassador in Kigali late on Friday. He was sentenced in September 2021 to 25 years over his tie to a group opposed to Rwandan President Paul Kagame that has an armed wing. US President Joe Biden issued a statement welcoming Russisabagina's release and thanking the governments of Rwanda and Qatar for making it possible. The film Hotel Rwanda is about Russisabagina's story when he saved over a thousand refugees during the Rwandan genocide in 1994, including his own family, by sheltering them in the hotel he managed at the time. Washington's historically close ties with Rwanda had been strained by the case, and by US allegations denied by Kigali that Rwanda has sent troops into neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo and supports rebels there.

Russisabagina also denied the charges against him and boycotted the trial, which supporters called a political sham. A spokesperson for Rwandan President Paul Kagame tweeted that the release was, quote, the result of a shared desire to reset US-Rwanda relationship. Russisabagina will remain in Rwanda for a couple of days before traveling back to Doha and then the United States, officials said.

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