Rusesabagina was released last Friday after President Kagame commuted his sentence following months of negotiations between Washington and Kigali.
The man who inspired the movie Hotel Rwanda, Paul Rusesabagina, has boarded a plane in Qatar bound for Houston after being released from prison in Rwanda last week, a source familiar with the case said Wednesday.
In September 2021, Rusesabagina, a United States permanent resident who has lived in exile in San Antonio, Texas for more than a decade, was sentenced to 25 years for his ties to a group opposed to Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who has an armed wing.
The 68-year-old, a vocal critic of Kagame, says he was lured to Rwanda in 2019 when he boarded a private plane in Dubai that he believed was bound for Bujumbura, Burundi. The plane instead landed in Kigali, where he was arrested.
He was released last Friday after Kagame commuted his sentence following months of negotiations between Washington and Kigali. He arrived in Doha on Monday.
Rusesabagina was celebrated around the world after being portrayed by actor Don Cheadle in the 2004 film Hotel Rwanda, portraying him as a hero who risked his life to shelter hundreds of people as the manager of a luxury hotel during the Rwandan Genocide in 1994.
Washington’s historically close ties to Rwanda have been strained by Rusesabagina’s detention and US allegations, denied by Kigali, that Rwanda has sent troops to neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo and is supporting rebels there.
The European Union and United Nations experts have made similar accusations.
Rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have also accused the Kagame government of suppressing dissent.
Rwanda says Rusesabagina’s release is a result of a shared desire to reset the relationship between the US and Rwanda.
Rusesabagina boarded a plane Wednesday morning and is scheduled to land in Houston in the afternoon, where he is expected to see his family, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.
At his trial, he acknowledged leading an opposition group, but denied responsibility for attacks in Rwanda by his armed wing.
The judges said the two wings of the group were indistinguishable.
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