Rwandan activist seeks to relaunch suit against charter airline over kidnapping plot

(CN) — A lawyer for Rwandan human rights activist Paul Rusesabagina told a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals panel Tuesday that a lower court erred in dismissing his client’s lawsuit against a charter airplane company Rusesabagina claims helped the Rwandan government abduct him on jurisdictional grounds.

Rusesabagina is famous for sheltering refugees in a hotel he managed during the Rwandan genocide in 1994. He is credited with saving the lives of more than 1,000 people, a story which inspired the film “Hotel Rwanda.” Rusesabagina is also an outspoken critic of Rwandan President Paul Kagame.

Rusesabagina claims that in 2020, he was lured from his home in San Antonio, Texas, by Burundian Bishop Constantin Niyomwungere, whom he says was secretly working as an agent of the Rwandan government. Niyomwungere purportedly had Rusesabagina fly to Dubai, where he joined Niyomwungere on a charter plane operated by the company GainJet. Rusesabagina believed the pair were flying to Burundi, where Rusesabagina would give speeches at churches about the Rwandan genocide.

In actuality, however, the plane landed in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, where Rwandan security agents boarded and detained Rusesabagina. He was subsequently convicted of terrorism by a Rwandan court in what he calls a “sham” trial. Rusesabagina was held in a Rwandan prison until the U.S. negotiated his release in 2023.

In 2024, U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez of the Western District of Texas dismissed a lawsuit by Rusesabagina and his family against GainJet, finding that Texas did not have personal jurisdiction over the Greece-based company.

“While the Court agrees with Plaintiffs that much of the jurisdictional evidence suggests that GainJet was aware of or agreed to participate in the kidnapping, GainJet’s intent to kidnap Mr. Rusesabagina does not establish purposeful contacts with Texas or with the United States as a whole simply because Mr. Rusesabagina is a resident of both Texas and the United States,” Rodriguez, a George W. Bush appointee, wrote in his ruling.

But Nicholas Shadowen, an attorney representing Rusesabagina and his family, told the Fifth Circuit panel Tuesday that they should find Texas has jurisdiction because GainJet is accused of participating in a conspiracy that was aimed at a resident of Texas. Unlike some other circuits, the Fifth Circuit hasn’t adopted conspiracy jurisdiction, which grants a forum personal jurisdiction over a defendant if they are accused of participating in a conspiracy where any part of the plot occurred in the forum. Instead, the Fifth Circuit typically requires a defendant to have purposefully directed their own conduct at a forum for that forum to have jurisdiction.

However, Shadowen said the Fifth Circuit has never officially rejected conspiracy jurisdiction, and he argued this case fits the criteria for conspiracy jurisdiction set by other circuits. Even if the court weren’t to adopt conspiracy jurisdiction, Shadowen argued it should still find jurisdiction in this case because GainJet directed its conduct at Texas by relaying false information about where the flight was headed to Rusesabagina through Niyomwungere as an intermediary while Rusesabagina was still in Texas.

“The District Court here was focused on where the plane took off and the dramatic harm that ensued in Rwanda,” Shadowen said. “But at this stage, this case is not about takeoff, it’s about where the lie landed, and it landed in Texas.”

But GainJet’s attorney, Andrew Harakas, vigorously denied that his clients had any knowledge of the kidnapping plot.

“If the Rwandan government went to a charter operator and said, ‘Look, we want you to do this rendition flight,’ any reputable charter operation would say absolutely not,” Harakas said. “And GainJet is a very reputable charter operator. They fly heads of state, including former presidents of the United States.”

U.S. Circuit Judge Catharina Haynes expressed skepticism at the claim that GainJet had no idea it was helping to abduct Rusesabagina.

“[The crew members] have to know not to say to him, if he said, ‘Oh, I’m so looking forward to going [to Burundi], and they go, ‘Well, no, we’re going to Rwanda. What do you mean?’ That would have changed everything. So they have to know not to say it, or else he probably would not have gone,” Haynes, a George W. Bush appointee, said. “So I mean, the notion that they had no idea that they were part of this horrible situation is a little hard.”

Harakas pointed to Niyomwungere’s testimony at Rusesabagina’s trial in Rwanda that he deliberately had Rusesabagina sit with his back to a screen showing the plane’s flight path and distracted him whenever the crew mentioned Rwanda. And even assuming Rusesabagina’s allegations are true, Harakas argued, that doesn’t mean Texas has jurisdiction over GainJet. Rusesabagina hasn’t shown that GainJet knew Rusesabagina was in Texas when it allegedly provided false flight information, Harakas said, so it couldn’t have deliberately directed its conduct at Texas.

Senior U.S. Circuit Judge James Dennis and U.S. Circuit Judge Carl Stewart, both Bill Clinton appointees, joined Haynes on the panel.