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Top Jurist Pleads
With Jumblat to Help Free
Geagea
April 7, 2004
A top Lebanese jurist
has issued an appeal for
the release of Lebanese
Forces commander Samir
Geagea, saying his "10-year
agony in solitary confinement
is enough." The plea
was made by Dr. Edmond
Naim, who spearheaded
Geagea's defense during
trials in the 1990s on
charges of scheming to
overthrow the regime,
partition Lebanon into
sectarian mini-states
and assassinating political
rivals, An Nahar reported
on Wednesday.
Naim addressed the plea
through the Markazia news
agency to Druze leader
Walid Jumblat, whose Progressive
Socialist Party fielded
the mightiest militia
on the Muslim camp during
Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil
war.
Geagea headed the LF,
the Christians' main militia,
in the latter stages of
the war and was the only
warlord afterwards to
go to prison, while almost
all others joined post-war
governments as cabinet
ministers.
Christian leaders as well
as Patriarch Nasrallah
Sfeir, head of the Maronite
church, have adamantly
contended that the total
of 120-year jail term
passed by several courts
against Geagea was politically
motivated because he had
refused to serve in post-war
pro-Syrian governments.
Naim singled out Jumblat
for the plea because the
Druze chieftain had declared
in a recent dialogue with
students of Notre Dame
University (NDU) that
he would not object to
Geagea's release if the
Chamoun and the Karami
clans announce a pardon
for Geagea.
Geagea had been convicted
by supreme courts in Beirut
of engineering the assassination
of ex-Premier Rashid Karami
in 1986 and National Liberal
Party leader Danny Chamoun
in 1990.
"I
plead with you Walid Bey
to try to persuade all
concerned that the agony
of 10 years in solitary
confinement, which Geagea
has already served, is
enough," Naim said.
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