President Biden celebrates launch of ‘Resort Rwanda’ hero Paul Rusesabagina

President Biden thanked Rwanda’s authorities on Friday for releasing Paul Rusesabagina, who impressed the movie “Resort Rwanda,” and permitting him to return to his household within the U.S.

Rusesabagina, a 68-year-old U.S. resident and Belgian citizen, had his 25-year sentence for terrorism offenses commuted by presidential order after a request for clemency. A Rwanda authorities spokesperson mentioned the commutation doesn’t “extinguish” his conviction.

Biden launched an announcement Friday welcoming Rusesabagina house to the U.S.

“I welcome at the moment’s launch of Paul Rusesabagina by the Authorities of Rwanda,” Biden wrote. “Paul’s household is raring to welcome him again to the US, and I share their pleasure at at the moment’s excellent news.”

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“I thank the Rwandan Authorities for making this reunion doable, and I additionally thank the Authorities of Qatar for facilitating Paul’s launch and return to the US,” he continued. “I add my gratitude to these throughout the U.S. Authorities who’ve labored with the Authorities of Rwanda to attain at the moment’s comfortable final result.”

Rusesabagina impressed the 2004 movie “Resort Rwanda” for saving tons of of individuals from genocide. However years later, he was convicted of eight costs — together with membership in a terrorist group, homicide and abduction — in a trial that has been extensively criticized by the U.S. and others. The circumstances of his arrest, his restricted entry to an unbiased authorized workforce and his deteriorating well being sparked worldwide backlash.

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Paul Rusesabagina impressed the 2004 movie “Resort Rwanda” for saving tons of of individuals from genocide. (Photograph by SIMON WOHLFAHRT/AFP through Getty Photographs)

He went lacking in 2020 throughout a go to to Dubai and appeared days later in Rwanda in handcuffs. His household says he was kidnapped and brought to Rwanda in opposition to his will to face trial. Rusesabagina has additionally mentioned he was gagged and tortured earlier than he was jailed, however Rwandan authorities have denied this allegation.

Rusesabagina has mentioned he was arrested attributable to his criticism of Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame over alleged human rights abuses. Rwanda’s authorities has denied accusations it targets dissenting voices with arrests and extrajudicial killings.

In an Oct. 14 letter posted on the justice ministry’s web site, Rusesabagina wrote “if I’m granted a pardon and launched, I perceive totally that I’ll spend the rest of my days in the US in quiet reflection. I can guarantee you thru this letter that I maintain no private or political ambitions in any other case. I’ll go away questions concerning Rwandan politics behind me.”

Paul Rusesabagina was convicted in Rwanda of eight costs, together with membership in a terrorist group, homicide and abduction. (AP Photograph/Muhizi Olivier)

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Rusesabagina was given the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom after he sheltered greater than 1,000 ethnic Tutsis on the lodge he managed throughout Rwanda’s 1994 genocide when greater than 800,000 Tutsi and Hutus who tried to guard them had been killed.

He turned a public critic of Kagame and left Rwanda in 1996, initially dwelling in Belgium earlier than shifting to the U.S.

The Related Press contributed to this report.