BEIRUT, 24 December 2004 — MPs from the bloc of Druze leader Walid Jumblatt have signed a petition to free jailed arch-foe, former Christian warlord Samir Geagea, sources at Geagea’s outlawed Lebanese Forces said yesterday.
MP Akram Shehayyeb signed the petition in the name of Jumblatt’s 16-member parliamentary bloc during a meeting Wednesday with Sitrida Geagea, wife of the former LF militia leader, they said.
“They signed the petition to show that we are all turning a page on the war chapter and opening a new page,” said one source.
“It’s now time for all of us to stop making problems and start real dialogue because the issue is not about Samir Geagea or the Christians anymore, it has become a national issue, it is about the identity of Lebanon.”
The source said 24 MPs have so far signed the petition, which was launched about three years ago as a bid to amend the general amnesty law adopted after the end of the country’s 1975-1990 civil war.
Prominent attorney Edmond Naim, once on Geagea’s defense team, told AFP the petition was in the form of a bill that would “amend several clauses of the general amnesty law so that Samir Geagea can benefit from amnesty.”
Amending the law needs a majority vote, in the presence of more than half of the house’s 128 members, he said.
The amendment could also benefit exiled Lebanese Christian leader Gen. Michel Aoun, who is facing charges of embezzlement, abuse of power and damaging the country’s ties with Syria, the power broker in Lebanon.
Geagea could also regain freedom if pardoned by presidential decree. His sentences were delivered by the Judicial Council, whose verdicts cannot be appealed.
He is the only militia leader who participated in the Lebanese civil war to have been prosecuted and jailed.
