Rwanda cancels UN bilateral with Belgium over Hotel Rwanda hero’s guilty verdict

Rwanda has cancelled a bilateral meeting with Belgium after its deputy prime minister questioned the fairness of Paul Rusesabagina’s trial – as did the US and Amnesty International.

CAPE TOWN, September 21 (ANA) – Rwanda has cancelled a bilateral meeting with Belgium after the Belgian deputy prime minister questioned the fairness of Paul Rusesabagina’s trial – as did the US and Amnesty International.

In a statement posted to Twitter on Monday night, Rwanda’s ministry of foreign affairs and international cooperation cancelled bilateral a meeting between Belgium and Rwanda on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

Rwanda points to the contempt shown to its justice system by Belgium’s deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs, Sophie Wilmes, following the verdict of Rusesabagina.

Wilmes questioned the rights of Rusesabagina’s defence and the lack of respect for the presumption of innocence, according to her statement.

“These de facto elements call into question the trial and judgement,” Wilmes said.

The US and rights-based group Amnesty International echoed similar sentiments to Wilmes.

“The reported lack of fair trial guarantees calls into question the fairness of the verdict,” the spokesperson of the department of state, Ned Price, said in statement on Monday night.

“We urge the government of Rwanda to take steps to examine these shortcomings in Mr Rusesabagina’s case,” Price said after noting impeded access to Rusesabagina’s lawyers.

Amnesty International’s deputy regional director for East Africa, Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes, Sarah Jackson, called for fair trial violations such as “Rusesabagina’s arrest under false pretences and unlawful transfer to Rwanda, enforced disappearance and incommunicado detention following his rendition to Rwanda”, to be remedied, in a statement on Monday afternoon.

The international organisation further believes other violations contributed to Rusesabagina’s guilty verdict – including Rwandan President Paul Kagame’s public comments that may have hindered Rusesabagina’s right to be presumed innocent before being proven guilty, being denied the lawyer of his choice, and the confiscation of legal documents by prison authorities.

“Fair trial violations in the case were a disservice to the course of justice and to the victims and survivors of the attacks for which Rusesabagina and others were accused of being responsible,” Jackson said.

Rusesabagina was sentenced to 25 years in prison on Monday in a Rwandan court on terror-related crimes after being accused of being the coordinator and financing a rebel group’s attack in 2018 resulting in nine people being killed, BBC reported.

The accused did not leave prison to attend the trial and previously admitted to financing the rebel group, however, denied playing a role in the attacks.

He was a notable critic of Kagame’s Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) government, founder of the opposition party Party of Democracy in Rwanda (PDR-Ihumure) and co-founded a coalition of opposition parties called Rwanda Movement for Democratic Change (MRCD), Amnesty International said.

Rusesabagina’s heroics during the 1994 Rwanda genocide was depicted on the big screen in 2004’s Oscar-nominated Hotel Rwanda where he was played by actor Don Cheadle.

– African News Agency (ANA); Editing by Naomi Mackay