A judicial source and Al Jadeed TV of Lebanon reported on Friday that the Christian lawmaker Samir Geagea has been indicted by a Lebanese military court over deadly confrontations in Beirut last October, a move that could exacerbate political tensions two months before an election.
An senior in Geagea’s Lebanese Forces (LF) party stated that the charge against him was political, and the inquiry into the incident had been political from the start.
Judge Fadi Akiki told Al Jadeed that Geagea was accused two days ago based on “new information” on the Teyouneh events, Beirut’s bloodiest street violence in a decade.
Seven people were killed in fighting along an old frontline of the 1975-90 civil war, all of them adherents of the Shi’ite Muslim party Hezbollah and its Shi’ite partner, the Amal Movement.
Any attempt to detain Geagea would almost certainly be met with resistance by his party, posing a risk of unrest just two months before the parliamentary election, according to Carnegie Middle East Center’s Mohanad Hage Ali.
Last October, Geagea was summoned to a military intelligence hearing on the violence, but he did not show up.
The violence began on October 14 when people gathered for a Hezbollah-organized protest against the court probing the 2020 Beirut port blast.
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