I’m not Rwandan, Rusesabagina says as trial kicks off in Kigali

Hotel Rwanda hero Paul Rusesabagina on Wednesday morning told a Rwandan court that he is not Rwandan and his citizenship should be changed to Belgian in the court files.

He spoke when he appeared at the court in Kigali for his trial-in-substance on crimes related to terrorism, financing and forming illegal armed groups, arson, and kidnap.

“Let me say this again as I have said five times before. I am not a Rwandan citizen. That should be changed to Belgian on the case file,” he said when a judge asked him to declare his presence in court.

Mr Rusesabagina, represented by lawyer Gatera Gashabana, is lined up alongside 20 other co-accused, including former commander and spokesperson of the FLN rebels, Callixte Nsabimana, aka Sankara, who already pleaded guilty to 16 terrorism charges in court proceedings in May 2019.

The FLN is an armed rebel wing of the MRCD opposition group, which was co-founded by Rusesabagina, mainly made up of exiled dissidents.

The FLN is accused of conducting attacks in Southern Rwanda between 2018 and 2019, killing up to nine people.

On Tuesday evening, hours before the trial commenced, the Rwandan Parliament released a resolution demanding that the European Union Parliament retract a resolution they made calling for the immediate release of Mr Rusesabagina on grounds that his arrest was an “enforced disappearance.”

The Rwandan Parliament condemned the European Union's call for the release of Paul Rusesabagina, arguing that characterising his arrest as an enforced disappearance or illegal rendition was “unrealistic and baseless.”

“The Rwandan Parliament rejects the European Parliament's finding that Paul Rusesabagina's arrest violates Rwanda's obligations under various international legal instruments – a question which the European Parliament has no standing to assess and in fact has not held any hearings on, given that Paul Rusesabagina was wanted by Rwandan law enforcement in connection with crimes committed in Rwanda and therefore under the jurisdiction of Rwandan courts,” Rwandan Parliament’s resolution reads.

It also rejected the EU's argument that Rusesabagina will not receive a fair trial in Rwanda, saying that “numerous criminal suspects extradited from Europe and other jurisdictions have received fair trials before Rwandan courts.”

The eleven-point resolution concluded that the EU's stance amounts to an attempt to improperly influence an ongoing judicial proceeding and demanded that the European body retract its resolution “given the inviolability of the principle of judicial independence and separation of powers.”

The venue of Rusesabagina’s trial was changed to the Supreme Court building in Kigali - because of its larger accommodation capacity - from the High Court Chamber for International and Cross-Border Crimes in Nyanza District, which is a three-hour drive from the capital.

The "Hotel Rwanda" hero was airlifted to Kigali in August last year and charged with 14 crimes related to terrorism.

In previous interviews, Rusesabagina said that at the time he was travelling to Burundi but instead ended up on Rwandan soil in handcuffs.

His family maintains that he was kidnapped.

The former hotelier had not stepped foot in Rwanda since 1996 and had been living in Belgium as a citizen and the USA as a permanent resident.