Top Lebanon politician summoned for hearing over deadly clashes

Lebanese Christian politician Samir Geagea was yesterday summoned for a hearing by Army Intelligence over the fatal clashes in Beirut this month, a source close to the party said.

The Oct 14 clashes left seven people — followers of the Lebanon’s Hezbollah group and its ally, the Amal Movement — dead in the worst street violence in Beirut in over a decade.

Responding to reports he would be summoned for interrogation, Geagea, in the same interview, had said he would go “on the condition that Nasrallah is heard before me,” in reference to Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah.The demonstrators had gathered to demand the removal of the judge investigating last year’s port blast that killed more than 200 people, Tarek Bitar.

Hezbollah, Amal and the Marada Movement have accused Bitar of politicising the probe after he sought to question former ministers affiliated with the latter two parties. Geagea’s hearing has been set for 9am on Wednesday at the Defence Ministry in Yarze, south of Beirut, where the former militia leader was imprisoned for more than 11 years after the end of Lebanon’s 1975-90 Civil War, the source said. It was not immediately clear whether Geagea would attend. A security source confirmed the time of the hearing when asked by Reuters.

“All political forces (involved) should be summoned like Geagea, but it’s clear that there is a big targeting of the Lebanese Forces and its chief,” for their support of the investigation into the blast, the source said. MP Sethrida Geagea, Samir Geagea’s wife, said in a statement that pressure was being exerted on the judiciary to target the Lebanese Forces.

Geagea’s hearing has been set for 9am on Wednesday at the Defence Ministry