Some shocking allegations against the hero of 'Hotel Rwanda'

Paul Rusesabagina is being released from prison, but that doesn't mean he isn't guilty of crimes during the genocide.

Journalism is too opaque and misunderstood. Chills gives a behind-the-scenes look at how dangerous investigative journalism gets made. 

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Paul Rusesabagina at his trial in February 2021. (Simon Wohlfahrt/AFP via Getty Images)

With the news that Paul Rusesabagina, the hero of the film “Hotel Rwanda,” is being released from prison, where he was serving 25 years on terrorism charges, I want to tell you a little about him.

I wrote a two-part series about Rusesabagina last year. And his story about saving 1,200 Tutsis from genocide by letting them sleep at his hotel — it’s simply not true, many Rwandans say. Genocide survivors and UN officers who were in the country in 1994 have called the film a fairytale, and the man a Hollywood-made myth. Some say he forced desperate people to pay for their stay in the hotel, even while the hotel’s parent company, Belgium’s national airline, Sabena, allegedly told Rusesabagina not to charge the refugees. 

Some of the accusations against Rusesabagina are truly shocking. Here’s part one of my series. Below is where the series starts.