May 8 (Reuters) - East Timor Prime Minister Jose Ramos-Horta faces independence fighter-turned-politician Francisco Guterres in a presidential run-off on Wednesday.

Here are five facts about Jose Ramos-Horta.

* The eloquent 57-year-old former journalist won the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize for the worldwide resistance campaign he spearheaded against Indonesian rule while in exile after the 1975 invasion of East Timor.

* Ramos-Horta returned to East Timor in 1999 as the country finally secured its freedom. Appointed foreign minister in 2002, he became prime minister in July 2006, after incumbent Mari Alkatiri resigned over accusations he had inflamed violence that saw more than 30 people killed in May.

* Ramos-Horta was a founding member of East Timor's leading political party, the socialist-leaning Fretilin. He left it in the 1980s and has moved to the centre of the political spectrum, running as an independent in the 2007 election.

* Born on Dec. 26, 1949, in the capital, Dili, to a Timorese mother and Portuguese father, he left on a trip to New York three days before Indonesia invaded in December 1975. Of his 11 siblings, three of his brothers and one of his sisters were killed by the Indonesian military.

* Ramos-Horta studied and lectured in Europe, Australia and the United States while in exile, after completing a masters degree in peace studies at Antioch University in Seattle in 1984. He is divorced from politician Anna Pessoa Pinto, with whom he has one son. Source: Reuters (Additional reporting by Nagesh Narayana and Gill Murdoch, Bangalore and Singapore Editorial Reference Units)

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