Jumblat's Bloc Signs 'Free Geagea' Petition, Harirists Might Follow

 

Naharnet

Walid Jumblat has delegated legislator Akram Shihayeb to call on Sitrida Geagea Wednesday and sign the petition for the release of her jailed husband Samir Geagea on behalf of the Druze leader's 16-man bloc in Parliament, the Beirut media reported. The petition is with Mrs. Geagea. "We have turned today a new page of cooperation with our former enemies, I mean during the war which is over and out," Shihayeb told reporters after signing the document at the Geagea residence in Zouk Mosbeh, north of Beirut. Jumblat's move would raise to more than 30 the number of legislators who have already signed a draft bill for an amendment of the General Amnesty Law that would reverse three murder verdicts against the Lebanese Forces commander and drop charges of mutiny and public funds embezzlement against Gen. Michel Aoun. The move signaled a sharp change in Jumblat's long-standing attitude that he would support Geagea's release only if Omar Karami, who recently became Lebanon's prime minister, drops his legal status as plaintiff in the case of Geagea's conviction of assassinating late prime minister Rashid Karami, Omar's elder brother, at the height of the Lebanese civil war. Ex-Premier Rafik Hariri's Al Mustaqbal newspaper contended that Jumblat's move would "snowball" support for the "free-Geagea" petition, but it stopped short of revealing whether Hariri would follow Jumblat's suit and have the petition signed by the whole of his 18-man Beirut bloc in Parliament. Some Hariri supporters have signed the document on personal initiative. If Hariri directs his Beirut bloc and allied legislators elsewhere in Lebanon to sign, the petition would have around 50 signatories or even more.