Lebanon: Military Court Issued a Subpoena to Samir Geagea

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Al Mayadeen correspondent reported on Friday that Lebanon’s military court has issued a subpoena to the Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea.

On Thursday, Geagea was summoned for questioning over a shooting attack on a peaceful demonstration in Tayouneh. The summons follows incriminating confessions given by some of the arrested Lebanese Forces members, according to a source cited by Reuters.

Lebanon’s Interior Ministry has lately confirmed that the Lebanese Forces party was behind the attack that left 7 martyred, citing that rooftop snipers aimed directly at people’s heads.

What do you need to know?

On Oct. 14, hundreds of Lebanese citizens were marching towards the Palace of Justice in Beirut. Protesters desired to object to the politicization of what was supposed to be a uniquely juridical process regarding the Beirut Port explosion that rocked the city almost a year and a half ago.

The demonstration was supposed to be a peaceful act but the reaction the protesters received was not - some did not make it back home. According to security reports cited by various Lebanese media outlets, it is almost certain that at some point in the march, the latter came under fire from snipers belonging to the Lebanese Forces Party (LF). The ambush left 7 people dead including Maryam, a mother of 5, who was deliberately sniped while attempting to get her children to safety after hearing gunfire.

Who is Samir Geagea?

Samir Geagea, the head of the current LF party, has a long history of massacres. In 1978, Geagea headed an assassination squad that broke into Tony Frangieh's home, the head of a rival faction named Al-Marda, and assassinated Frangie in cold blood, along with his wife and 3-year-old child.

What did Nasrallah say?

“The real endgame of the Lebanese Forces is to ignite a civil war that would lead to demographic change.”

This is what the Secretary-General of Hezbollah, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, revealed in his speech on the recent developments in Lebanon after the Tayouneh ambush.

Sayyed Nasrallah confirmed the desire of a party [The Lebanese Forces] to make “our people in Ain al-Remmaneh and Furn El Chebbak” believe that their surrounding neighbors in the Southern suburbs are their enemies, decrying the labeling of the murder of demonstrators as “an act of resistance” by some of the LF’s officials.

The Secretary-General pointed out that the head of this party is trying to generate an imaginary internal enemy in the hopes of keeping Christians worried about their local presence, thus spreading desperation in order to anoint himself as “the defender of Christians.”

The LF and its leader were not mentioned by name previously in order to avoid raising tension, the Secretary-General noted, despite the recurrent insults Hezbollah received from the right-wing party.

Lebanese and international condemnations 

Former Lebanese Prime Ministers Fouad Siniora, Saad Hariri, and Tammam Salam expressed their "deep shock and sorrow," and completely condemned the reprehensible events which left seven martyrs in the Tayouneh (Beirut) area. 

In the same context, the international response continued on the recent Lebanese events, as Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Iran issued statements regarding the ambush.