KIGALI — Rwandan President Paul Kagame on Sunday
dismissed widespread criticism of the terrorism trial of the polarizing
"Hotel Rwanda" hero hailed for saving over 1,000 lives during the
country's 1994 genocide.
اضافة اعلان
He said Paul Rusesabagina, now a prominent Kagame critic
whose detention and trial has raised global alarm, was in the dock not because
of his fame but because people had died as a result of his later actions.
Rusesabagina, 67, faces a verdict on September 20 on charges
of being a terrorist mastermind who financed a rebel group behind a string of
deadly attacks in the east African country.
He and his family have long rejected the allegations and say
the former hotelier whose actions during the genocide inspired the 2004
Hollywood film is the victim of a politically-motivated show trial.
Prosecutors are seeking a life sentence for Rusesabagina,
who they accuse of supporting the rebel National Liberation Front (FLN), a
group blamed for attacks inside Rwanda in 2018 and 2019 that killed nine
people.
"He is here being tried for that. Nothing to do with
the film. Nothing to do with celebrity status," Kagame said in a nationally
televised interview.
"It is about the lives of Rwandans that were lost
because of his actions and because of the organizations that he belonged to or
led," he said.
"What he is being tried for and accused of is having a
hand in these armed groups and terrorists. ... This man deserves to be fairly
tried in the court of law and is going to be tried as fairly as that can
be."
Rusesabagina has denied any involvement in the attacks, but
was a founder of the Rwandan Movement for Democratic Change (MRCD), an
opposition group of which the FLN is seen as the armed wing.
'Love to hate Rwanda'
"Hotel Rwanda" told how the former manager of
Kigali's Hôtel des Mille Collines saved more than 1,200 people who sheltered
there during the genocide in which an estimated 800,000 were slaughtered, most
of them ethnic Tutsis.
Rusesabagina, a Hutu, subsequently became an outspoken
Kagame critic and lived in exile in the US and Belgium since 1996.
He was arrested in August last year when a plane he believed
was bound for Burundi landed in Kigali instead, a move his supporters describe
as a kidnapping.
He faces nine charges, including terrorism, but has
boycotted proceedings since March, accusing the court of "unfairness and a
lack of independence".
Kagame has been in power since 1994 and is accused by
critics of crushing opponents and ruling through fear.
In Sunday's interview, he rejected allegations Kigali had
used the Israeli malware Pegasus after an international media probe revealed
more than 3,500 Rwandans — including Rusesabagina's daughter — were potential
targets of the software.
"So on the question of whether we spy with this tool,
the answer is no, and a big no in capital letters," he said.
"But like any other country in this world, Rwanda does
collect intelligence and there are so many ways of doing that," he added.
Among the numbers that appeared on the leaked records
revealed by the media investigation in July was a cell phone belonging to
Carine Kanimba, who has been leading the campaign to free her father.
"The media is awash with so many things about Rwanda
that are not true. The media, especially Western media, love to hate
Rwanda," said Kagame.
Read more Region and World
.jpg)
.jpg)
