Geagea: Ruling against Chartouni a Conviction against March 8 Camp

Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea said the death sentence verdict against the assassins of president-elect Bashir Geamyel is a ruling against the whole of the March 8 camp which “seeks violence and political assassinations.”

“The Judicial Council's ruling that sentenced Habib Chartouni and Nabil al-Alam to death in the assassination of Gemayel is a ruling against all of March 8,” said Geagea, as he accused the alliance of “seeking violence and political assassinations.”

“The ruling issued is not only for one person but for all of March 8 because this person belongs to one of the parties of this camp. This man's party has carried out the operation as mentioned in the minutes of the investigation. He was definitely linked to one of the March 8 parties and to the Syrian intelligence at that stage,” added Geagea.

The LF leader pointed out saying that March 8 resorts to political assassinations in order to each its goals.

“This provision confirms the fact that March 8 group pleads for political assassination to reach its goals. We all know that there are members of a political party of March 8 being prosecuted before the International Tribunal,” added Geagea, in reference to Hizbullah members reportedly accused in the assassination of former PM Rafik Hariri.

On Friday, the Judicial Council, Lebanon's highest state security court, sentenced Chartouni and al-Alam to death in absentia in the case of the 1982 assassination of President-elect Bashir Gemayel.

The in absentia trial had kicked off on November 25, 2016. During that session, the Judicial Council called on Chartouni -- who confessed to planting the bomb before escaping prison -- to turn himself in. It also decided to launch in absentia proceedings against the other suspect in the case, al-Alam, after media reports said he had died of illness in Brazil in 2014.

Gemayel was a senior member of the Kataeb Party and the supreme commander of the Lebanese Forces militia during the early years of the civil war.

He was elected president on August 23, 1982 while the country was torn by civil war and occupied by both Israel and Syria.

Gemayel was assassinated on September 14, 1982, along with 26 others, when a bomb exploded in Kataeb's headquarters in Ashrafieh.