A former Baptist church pastor from Rwanda will face a possible life jail sentence for his role in the 1994 massacres when Finland's first genocide trial starts next week.

The 58-year-old Francois Bazaramba, who sought asylum in Finland in 2003 and has been in detention since 2007, goes on trial on Tuesday.

Bazaramba,  a Hutu, denies genocide and 15 counts of murder.

Universal jurisdiction

Rwanda accuses Bazaramba of orchestrating the murder of 5,000 people in the country in 1994. But Finland refused in February to extradite Bazaramba to Rwanda, saying he might not get a fair trial there.

Finnish law allows its courts to try those charged with crimes like genocide wherever they took place.

Porvoo

The trial, expected to last several months, will be held in the district court of Porvoo, where Bazaramba has been living some 50 km (30 miles) east of Helsinki.

Bazaramba's trial will be heard by four judges and there will be no jury. A life sentence in Finland means a minimum 12 years in jail.

Reflecting the scale of the Finnish trial, the Office of the Prosecutor General said around 100 witnesses were examined in pre-trial work by the National Bureau of Investigation, most of this done abroad.

ICTR

The case in Finland comes as the work by the Tanzania-based International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) winds up. The court, set up in 1997 to try the masterminds of the massacres, had until last year to complete all trials, and has until 2010 to hear all appeals.

Bazaramba who is married with six children, lived since 1994 in countries including the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia before travelling to Finland.