He worked as the manager of the Hôtel des Mille Collines in Kigali, during a period in which it housed 1,268 Hutu and Tutsi refugees fleeing the Interahamwe militia during the Rwandan genocide.

[6] An account of Rusesabagina's actions during the genocide was later depicted in the film Hotel Rwanda in 2004, in which he was portrayed by American actor Don Cheadle.

[8][9] On the back of newly found international fame, Rusesabagina embarked on a successful career as a public speaker, mostly touring universities in the United States.

[4][15][16] On 31 August 2020, believing he was taking a chartered flight to Burundi from Dubai, he arrived in Kigali, where he was arrested on nine charges of terrorism that related to his association with the FLN (National Liberation Front), the armed wing of PDR-Ihumure, who claimed responsibility for terrorist attacks in 2018 that killed at least nine people.

[19] The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention rendered its opinion on 18 March 2022 that Rusesabagina had been illegally kidnapped, tortured, and sentenced after an unfair trial.

[21] He was one of nine children born to a Hutu father, a respected community elder named Thomas Rupfure, and a Tutsi mother in Murama, Rwanda.

[22][23] Although stating that he grew up poor, in a "house ... made of mud and sticks" and "without shoes", Rusesabagina described his upbringing as "solidly middle class by the standards of Africa in the 1950s".

[28] In 1992, Paul Rusesabagina was promoted to assistant general manager of the Diplomates Hotel, an affiliate of the Hôtel des Mille Collines.

[29] During Rusesabagina's training abroad, and his rise as a distinguished hôtelier, the Hutu-dominated government of President Juvénal Habyarimana was facing military pressure from the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF).

After a ceasefire in Arusha brought the Civil War to an end in 1993, several reports of militia activity – including the stockpiling of weapons and the creation of lists of Tutsis – had been received by the UN and other authorities.

[citation needed] When the violence broke out, soldiers came to Rusesabagina's house, asking him to open the Hôtel Diplomates, which the interim Hutu government used as a headquarters.

[34][28] Upon arrival, Rusesabagina promptly phoned the hotel's corporate owners, Sabena, imploring them to put him in charge as the acting general manager of the Mille Collines.

"[40] After staying in Rwanda for two more years after the genocide, Rusesabagina applied for asylum in Belgium and moved to Brussels with his wife, children, and two nieces in 1996, fearing for his life.

[45] In response to critics, Odette Nyiramilimo, a prominent survivor who became a senator in the new government, pushed back against Paul Ruseabagina's suspected bad-faith intentions, saying: "I never saw him threaten to expel people from the hotel if they didn't pay up — never.

"[46] In 2008, the book Hotel Rwanda or the Tutsi Genocide as seen by Hollywood, by Alfred Ndahiro, a public relations advisor to Kagame, and journalist Privat Rutazibwa, was published.

"[50][51][49] He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honour in the United States, by President George W. Bush on 9 November 2005 for "remarkable courage and compassion in the face of genocidal terror".

[15][56] The party's general ideology is somewhat unclear, but as Rusesabagina described in a 2012 speech, its policy is broadly oriented towards the "political struggle to liberate Rwanda from the current RPF dictatorship".

[59][60] The historian Gérard Prunier agrees that the RPF committed "horrendous crimes", but he rejects the notion of a "double genocide", which he argues "does not stand up to serious inquiry".

[64] Francois Xavier Ngarambe, the president of Ibuka, the umbrella body of survivors' associations for the genocide, said of Rusesabagina, "he has hijacked heroism.

"[38] The armed wing of Paul Rusesabagina's PDR-Ihumure and MRCD political parties, the FLN, was accused of terror attacks in South-West Rwanda in 2018.

[17] In an interview broadcast on Voice of America Kinyarwanda in 2018, when asked if FLN rebels were in the Nyungwe forest near where the attacks took place, Rusesabagina responded: "We are angry.

Hence, I plead my unreserved support that our youth, The National Liberation forces, NLF, launches against the Kagame army in order to free the Rwandan people.

"[73][74] Rusesabagina, a permanent resident of the United States who has not lived in Rwanda since an assassination attempt was made on him in 1996,[1][75] had gone on a trip to Dubai shortly before being arrested.

[76] In a jailhouse interview with The New York Times, Rusesabagina stated that in Dubai, he boarded a GainJet[77][78] charter jet that he thought was bound for Burundi, where he planned to speak at the invitation of a Christian pastor; instead, the plane took him to Kigali.

Human Rights Watch called Rusesabagina's trial "flawed" and an example of Rwanda's overreach and manipulation of the country's justice system.

[99] Others who have supported Rusesabagina include Joaquin Phoenix, Doc Rivers, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo, and Sophie Okonedo.

"[104] The U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution authored by Congressman Joaquin Castro (TX-20) and Congresswoman Young Kim (CA-39) that calls on the Rwandan government to release Paul Rusesabagina.

"Rusesabagina's family welcomed the Working Group's finding, and were "hopeful that the world will listen to this call by the United Nations and put pressure on Rwanda to immediately free our father and husband".

[citation needed] His autobiography An Ordinary Man (written with Tom Zoellner ISBN 0-670-03752-4) was published by Zach Bell in April 2006.

[116] In 2008, Alfred Ndahiro – a close advisor to Paul Kagame – and Rwandan scholar Privat Rutazibwa wrote Hotel Rwanda: Or the Tutsi Genocide as Seen by Hollywood (ISBN 2-296-05046-8).