He was released from prison on Friday night after negotiations brokered by Doha and is believed to be hosted by Qatari representatives in Kigali.

Mr Rusesabagina, a former hotel manager, was portrayed as a hero in the Hollywood film Hotel Rwanda, and was sentenced to 25 years for terrorism by a Rwandan court in what supporters called a sham trial.

In 2020 he was tricked to going to Rwanda in a private jet, thinking he was heading to neighbouring Burundi.

On Friday, Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Majed al-Ansari said on Twitter that “the procedure for his transfer” to Qatar was under way, from where Mr Rusesabagina will head to the US.

On Tuesday last week Rwanda's President Paul Kagame was in Doha, where he met Qatar's ruler Amir Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani. Mr Rusesabagina was released just three days later.

The US has long demanded Mr Rusesabagina's release, but Washington hasn’t been on very good terms with Rwanda for its views on the government's human rights record.

For Washington, Qatar which is a long-time US partner but also “a close friend and big investor in Rwanda’s aviation sector, was a good way to go”, Patrick Karamaga, a political science lecturer in the Democratic Republic of Congo, told BBC Great Lakes.

In 2019, Qatar agreed to invest 60% in the $1.3bn (£1bn) project to build the biggest airport in East Africa in Bugesera, some 40km (25 miles) south-east of Kigali.

The following year Qatar Airways bought 49% of the Rwandan state-owned carrier, Rwandair.

“Rwanda would resist the US pressure but not to a request of a friend who is investing hundreds of million dollars,” Mr Karamaga says.

On Friday, Mr al-Ansari said Qatar had become “a reliable international partner in resolving disputes through peaceful and diplomatic means”.