Paul Rusesabagina, the man whose story inspired the movie “Hotel Rwanda,” has returned to the United States after his release from a Rwandan prison last week. Rusesabagina is best known for saving hundreds of Rwandans during the country’s 1994 genocide. He did this by sheltering them in the hotel he managed.
He arrived at the US Army’s Brooke Army Medical Center at Joint Base San Antonio on Wednesday and is expected to participate in the Department of Defense program known as PISA (Post-Isolation Support Activities), which helps recently freed wrongful detainees to acclimate back to normal life.
Rusesabagina, a US legal resident, had been designated by the US State Department as wrongfully detained. He was released from prison in Rwanda after his sentence was commuted by President Paul Kagame. He had been found guilty of terrorism-related charges in September 2021 and was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Rusesabagina’s family has claimed that his arrest in 2020 was a kidnapping. After his release, he asked for a pardon in an October 2022 letter. He stated that he held no personal or political ambitions. Furthermore, he would spend the remainder of his days in the United States in quiet reflection.
