Africa, Rwanda: the 100-day genocide
Rwanda said it had arrested
Paul Rusesabagina
- the man who was hailed as a hero in a Hollywood movie about the country's 1994 genocide - on terrorism charges, and exhibited him, handcuffed, in front of the media.
Rusesabagina was played by Don Cheadle in the Oscar-nominated film
'Hotel Rwanda'
, which told the story of how he
used his job as a hotel manager and his connections with the Hutu elite to protect Tutsis
fleeing the massacre.
On Monday, two police officers took the
66-year-old
to a press conference at the headquarters of the Rwanda Investigations Office (RIB) and let the media film and take pictures.
Rusesabagina, who was wearing a mask, did not speak
.
He has said in the past that he is the victim of a smear campaign in Rwanda.
"Rusesabagina is suspected of being a founder or leader or sponsor or member of violent armed extremist terrorist groups ... operating in various places in the region and abroad," Office spokesman Thierry Murangira told reporters.
He added that Rusesabagina faces various charges, including
"terrorism, terrorist financing ... arson, kidnapping and murder
."
The Investigations Office said on Twitter that he had been detained
"through international cooperation"
and that he had been the subject of an international arrest warrant, without going into further details.
Rusesabagina, a critic of President Paul Kagame, moved abroad after the genocide and was acclaimed worldwide, receiving the highest civilian award in the United States, the
Presidential Medal of Freedom
, in 2005.
But in his country he has sparked outrage with warnings of another genocide, this time by the Tutsis against the Hutus.
He has received criticism from some genocide survivors and from Kagame, who
accuse him of exploiting the genocide for
commercial
gain
.
In 2010, the attorney general told Reuters that authorities had evidence that Rusesabagina had financed terrorist groups, although no charges were filed.
Since then, authorities
have said he played a role in a series of alleged attacks by rebels from the National Liberation Front (FLN) in southern Rwanda
along the border with Burundi in 2018.
Rusesabagina, whose father was Hutu but his mother and wife were Tutsis, has denied exaggerating his role in rescuing Tutsis.
She has not publicly responded to allegations of supporting armed groups.
Some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were massacred in 100 days in the Central African nation beginning
on April 6, 1994
.
Soldiers of the then Hutu government and allies of ethnic militias orchestrated the genocide in which the victims were killed with machetes, burned alive or shot.
The killings ended when the Tutsi rebels, led by Kagame, took control and triggered an exodus of more than 2 million Hutus.
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