Invoice Shows that Rwandan President's Office Paid to Kidnap Rusesabagina

BRUSSELS - April 22, 2022 - PRLog -- The #FreeRusesabagina team held a briefing on April 20 at the Brussels Press Club. The assembled reporters heard from Vincent Lurquin, one of the Rusesabagina lawyers who made news by sharing the invoice which shows that the Office of the President of Rwanda paid for the plane that kidnapped Paul Rusesabagina.

Remarks from Paul's daughter Carine Kanimba and attorney Vincent Lurquin are below:

Press conference Paul RUSESABAGINA - April 20, 2022. Vincent Lurquin Remarks

Thank you, really thank you, for being here. Because, really, today, we need your help. the news of Paul Rusesabagina, from his cell in Nyarugenge, is bad.

Because the news received from Paul Rusesabagina, from his cell very bad, too bad... His lawyers alerted us: he was a victim of a stroke. Within the hour, he should have been hospitalized. The reality is that he has not received any care for months. This cruel sentence, during our last interview at the Foreign Affairs office: "Our embassy has been looking for a Rwandan doctor or an NGO. After the problems you experienced during your expulsion, no one wants to take the risk of intervening in this case. You can imagine... "

We need your help because we know you are not afraid of words. Death lurks around his cell and he is alone. In Nyarugenge, I went there. He was there, beyond that path, beyond that hill, a few hundred meters away. And yet, I did not see him, I was the one who was arrested, expelled, as were the rights of the defense throughout this masquerade of a trial. We cannot continue to listen without acting to this mute cry of a man who tears at our conscience, who reminds us of his innocence, who calls for his freedom. To do nothing would be to become accomplices. I really thank Mrs. Van Hoof for having made this rather exceptional gesture of refusing this complicity by accepting to take part in this press conference.

We need you because we need to make it known that we now have the proof, which cannot be ignored, that Paul Rusesabagina was abducted by the President of the Rwandan Republic. It is still enormous to have this proof of the abduction of a Belgian citizen when he has not even been granted the right to meet with his lawyers, to have more than five minutes per week to talk to his family, to consult a doctor, all these basic rights of every detainee. This is a serious violation of all international standards. It is a slap in the face to our Belgian democracy...

The proof is given to us by the RIB hearings of the Pastor who is the co-author of the kidnapping. Official hearings, irrefutable proof. This proof is also given to us by the Rwandan Minister of Justice during a television broadcast on Al Jaazera, journalists and viewers are witnesses.

The Belgian investigating judge in charge of the kidnapping investigation found this evidence during a rogatory commission in Athens, headquarters of the aviation company Gain Jet Aviation, through an invoice that will become one of the key elements of this case. This invoice is not the original copy. But it is attached to a court report. There is therefore no doubt about its authenticity. An invoice like any other, except that it resulted in the sentencing of an innocent man to 25 years in prison.

Its sender, an aviation company: Gain Jet Aviation. Its object: a flight in a private jet. The flight plan: August 19: Athens-Dubai; August 27: Dubai-Kigali; August 28: Kigali-Athens.

Nothing extraordinary except the recipient of this invoice: Lieutenant Colonel Innocent Gashuti OG Finances and Administration. Office of the Presidency. Kigali. In short, the Presidency of the Republic of Rwanda. The amount of the invoice: 120,100 US $.

This invoice is the inescapable proof that it is indeed Paul Kagame who prepared, paid, and organized the kidnapping of a Belgian citizen, Paul Rusesabagina. This was more than 20 months ago. You can imagine that this abduction obviously contaminates the entire trial, which is only known as a trial by the Rwandan authorities.

The rest you know: Paul Rusesabagina was tortured, he could not choose his lawyers, he could not participate in what Amnesty International, Human Rights, the Belgian House of Representatives, the European Parliament, the American Congress, the UN Human Rights Council, the international and national associations of lawyers, the moral and judicial authorities all over the world have never considered as a trial Mrs. Wilmes, our Minister of Foreign Affairs, is right when she says, in the name of the Belgian government, that this trial is neither fair nor equitable because of the violation of the basic rights of the defense.

Today, what we are asking is that Paul Rusesabagina be freed, urgently, it is his right, the application of the law that all those who took a stand for him are claiming. It is a legal cause, it is a political cause, it is an ethical cause as all those artists who have risen to say who this man is who stood up against the genocide in 1994, who saved so many humanities to oppose the genocidal madness. Today, this should have a special meaning.

Talk with the family, with his wife, with his daughters and sons who for months have moved mountains to convince. Today, we are afraid of being too cowardly to tell all these heart amputees who have opened their hands too much that they must be released, that they must free their husbands, their fathers because the law, because justice demands it, because if we wait any moment, it may be too late.

Thank you for being here. We ask you to relay this cry, which is no longer silent but composed of all the words of all those people who have intervened around the world: free Paul Rusesabagina. Free him and try him. This is what the Rwandan authorities asked of the Belgian state when they requested that an investigation be conducted against him.

Proceed with his transfer. Paul Rusesabagina wants to be tried so that he can say he is innocent of all the charges against him. It is not every day that someone asks to be tried. But he wants to be judged by a justice and not by men who take orders. He knows that if justice is rendered, he will be cleared because he is simply on the side of humanity. And he has proved it.

The statement from Paul's daughter, Carine Kanimba, is available here (https://paulr.org/2022/04/21/invoice-shows-that-rwandan-p...).

Here is a link to the press conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOr_dWgJDzM