KINGSTON, Ont. - A bilingual Ottawa judge who is handling a high-profile immigration case involving a 30-year-old terrorist bombing is likely to preside over a sensational murder trial in Kingston. Ont.

During discussions Tuesday, Justice Robert Maranger revealed that he will probably be the trial judge in the case of three people accused of murdering and conspiring to kill three children and a woman in their family in an Ontario canal.

"I think I am," Maranger told the lawyers. "There's a really, really good chance I am."

The issue arose as defence lawyer Peter Kemp was asking Maranger about scheduling pretrial motion hearings and setting aside time for a trial.

Kemp said he hopes pre-trial issues can be handled in May and June so a trial could begin in October or November and conclude by Christmas.

Maranger is also presiding over an Ottawa case in which France is seeking to extradite a former Carleton University professor, Hassan Diab. The French government claims Diab is responsible for a terrorist bombing in Paris in 1980 that killed four people and injured 40 others. A radical Palestinian group is blamed for the bombing.

In Kingston, Ont., Tooba Mohammad Yahya, 40, her husband, Mohammad Shafia, 56, and their son, Hamed, 19, are each charged with four counts of first-degree murder and four counts of conspiracy to commit murder.

Three teenage Shafia sisters, Zainab, 19, Sahari, 17, and Geeti, 13, along with Rona Amir Mohammad, 50, were found dead inside a submerged car discovered June 30, 2009, in the Rideau Canal at Kingston Mills, just outside Kingston, Ont. Rona Mohammad was Shafia's first wife.