Lebanese Forces supporters gesture during a protest in Maarab against the summoning of party leader Samir Geagea for a hearing by army intelligence over the Oct. 14 Tayyouneh clashes. (Credit: Mohamed Azakir/Reuters)
BEIRUT — Supporters of the Lebanese Forces party on Wednesday blocked roads leading to leader Samir Geagea’s residence as he failed to turn up for a hearing at army intelligence over fatal clashes in Beirut.
Geagea was summoned to the hearing, scheduled for 9 a.m. local time on Wednesday, amid claims by the Iran-backed Hezbollah and its ally the Amal Movement that LF supporters shot dead seven of their followers in clashes on Oct. 14.
Geagea has denied the claims and said he is being unfairly targeted for his support of a probe by Judge Tarek Bitar into the August 2020 Beirut port explosion, which Hezbollah opposes.
“We won’t let anyone, not Hezbollah or Iran or Syria or anyone try to subjugate us,” an LF protester named Fadi told Reuters.
“We are here today in 2021 sacrificing for Samir Geagea just like he sacrificed for us in 1994 so Lebanon could remain and we could remain,” said Fadi, who did not give his last name.
Geagea, a former warlord, was imprisoned after Lebanon’s 1975–90 Civil War but was released in 2005 following the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon after three decades of occupation.
“Only the Lebanese Forces can protect East,” supporters chanted, using a wartime LF slogan conceived when Beirut was divided between Christian east, ruled by the LF militia, and Muslim west, where other militias held sway.
The Oct. 14 clashes occurred on the former dividing line, between Beirut’s Tayyouneh and Ain al-Rummaneh neighborhoods.
The gunfire started as supporters of Hezbollah and its Shiite ally Amal were gathering for a demonstration against Bitar.
Geagea has said the trouble began when Hezbollah and Amal supporters entered the Christian neighborhood of Ain al-Rummaneh, where they vandalized cars and four residents were wounded before a shot was fired.
A judge on Monday charged 68 people, including 18 detainees, with murder and incitement of sectarian strife over the clashes and referred the case to a military investigative judge. Their political affiliations, if any, remain unclear.
leader Samir Geagea’s residence as he failed to turn up for a
hearing at army intelligence over fatal clashes in Beirut.
Geagea was summoned to the hearing, scheduled for 9 a.m.
local time on Wednesday, amid claims by the Iran-backed
Hezbollah and its ally the Amal Movement...