Arusha, October 24, 2012 (FH) \u2013 Finnish justice on Monday upheld the life term handed down against Fran\u00e7ois Bazaramba, a Rwandan pastor convicted for genocide.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In the first genocide trial ever organized in Finland, Pastor Fran\u00e7ois Bazaramba, who has lived in Finland since 2003, was convicted of acts of genocide in June 2010 by the lower court of It\u00e4-Uusimaa, although he was acquitted of several of the murder charges. The Helsinki appeal court confirmed the conviction in March 2012.<\/p>\n
The Supreme Court on Monday rejected his last possible appeal.<\/p>\n
Bazaramba\u2019s lead counsel Ville Hoikkala might bring the case before the European Court for Human Rights. He claims that prosecution witnesses testified after being tortured.<\/p>\n
According to different sources, the Finnish Justice Ministry spent an estimated US$1.8 million on the case<\/p>\n
Bazaramba was arrested in April 2007. His trial opened in September 2009 after Finland had refused to extradite him to Rwanda, saying he might not receive a fair trial in his home country. <\/p>\n
ER\/GF<\/p>\n
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Arusha, October 24, 2012 (FH) \u2013 Finnish justice on Monday upheld the life term handed down against Fran\u00e7ois Bazaramba, a Rwandan pastor convicted for genocide.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-24623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hirondellenews"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n