WikiLeaks: Geagea Sought to Employ LBC for his Political Goals

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea was worried that the LBC television station would fall into the hands of pro-March 8 forces, revealed a leaked U.S. Embassy cable published exclusively in Al-Akhbar newspaper on Friday.

The WikiLeaks cable, dated May 16, 2006, spoke of a meeting between Geagea and then U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Jeffery Feltman during which LBC’s ownership was brought up.

Prior to Geagea’s imprisonment, the television station was affiliated with the Lebanese Forces.

Pierre al-Daher was entrusted with the station throughout his prison sentence and a dispute over the ownership arouse upon Geagea’s release.

Feltman stated that the LF leader viewed LBC as his instrument, seeking to play a greater role in its news coverage in order to make it a mouthpiece for the party.

During a June 14, 2007, meeting Geagea warned of the possibility of the television station falling into the hands of “hostile forces”, meaning the March 8 camp.

He explained that Daher was about to increase Prince Alwaleed bin Talal’s shares in LBC’s satellite station, who is “sympathetic with the March 8 camp and is planning on replacing Saad Hariri as the Sunni leader in Lebanon.”

Should he gain control of the satellite channel, then he will directly influence the Lebanese one seeing as the latter gets its funding from the satellite station, he continued.

Feltman revealed that Geagea did not want to resort to the Lebanese judiciary in order to settle the case due to the slowness of the procedures.

He instead wanted the U.S. to persuade Saudi Arabia to intervene in the affair, said the ambassador.