Lebanese Christian politician Samir Geagea said on Saturday that recent judicial decisions against his party were against the law.
Speaking at a news conference days after a judge charged him over deadly violence in Beirut in October, Geagea said that the judicial decisions were aimed at tarnishing the image of his Lebanese Forces (LF) party.
“The attempts to isolate, encircle, intimidate and abolish the Lebanese Forces continue to this day… And the latest attempt in this regard was judicial decisions that were born-dead because they are against every law,” he said, without mentioning the charge.
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Seven people, all of them followers of the Iran-backed Hezbollah group and its Shia ally the Amal Movement, were killed in the October 14 clashes near an old frontline of the 1975-90 civil war.
Geagea was summoned to a hearing at military intelligence last October over the violence but did not attend.
The October 14 violence began as people were gathering for a protest called by Hezbollah against the judge investigating the 2020 Beirut port blast.
Hezbollah accused the LF of mounting an ambush to try to drag the country to a civil war.
Geagea has said the trouble began when supporters of the Shia parties entered the Christian neighborhood of Ain al-Remmaneh where they vandalized cars and four residents were wounded before a shot was fired.
Geagea was speaking at an event to launch the candidacy of an LF candidate who is running in a May parliamentary election.
Hezbollah and groups politically aligned to the movement won a majority of seats in parliament in the last election in 2018.
Read more:
Geagea: Military court should first question Hezbollah’s Nasrallah on Beirut violence
Lebanon’s President Aoun calls for peace after night of sectarian clashes
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