BEIRUT, 27 July 2005 — A notorious anti-Syrian Christian warlord was released yesterday after 11 years in prison, the latest reconciliatory step in civil war-scarred Lebanon.
Before flying to France for a medical checkup, Samir Geagea, who had been serving three life sentence for murdering several people including a former pro-Syrian premier, urged Lebanese in a nationally televised speech to put the country’s 1975-90 civil war era behind them.
“You have come out of the big prison which you had been put in and you have taken me out with the same act from the small prison which I have been put in,” said Geagea, in reference to April’s Syrian military withdrawal, during his first public address since being imprisoned in April 1994.
“They were long dark black years,” he said during an emotional speech at Beirut’s international airport attended by several hundred applauding politicians, clergymen, supporters and journalists.
Geagea, 53, left his Defense Ministry cell in Beirut and soldiers escorted him straight to the airport where he met at the VIP lounge with supporters of his disbanded militia, the Christian Lebanese Forces. Outside, scores more supporters cheered, danced and waved Lebanese flags in celebration.
Geagea later flew out of Lebanon on an Air France commercial flight to Paris for a medical checkup and a period of rest in an undisclosed European location. His wife, who accompanied him, had said they will return here within one month.
Geagea was the only prominent former warlord from Lebanon’s civil war to remain jailed after being sentenced to life behind bars for killing several people.
