Samir Geagea
| Samir Geagea سمير جعجع |
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|---|---|
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| Executive Chairman of LF | |
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Assumed office 15 January 1986 |
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| Preceded by | Elie Hobeika |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
25 October 1952 Beirut, Lebanon |
| Nationality | Lebanese |
| Political party | Lebanese Forces |
| Other political affiliations |
Kataeb Party (Until 1992) |
| Spouse(s) | Sethrida Tawk |
| Alma mater |
American University of Beirut Saint Joseph University |
| Religion | Maronite Catholicism |
Samir Farid Geagea (Arabic: ْسمير فريد جَعْجَع, Arabic pronunciation: [samiːr ʤʕaʤʕa], also spelled Samir Ja‘ja‘; born 25 October 1952) is a Lebanese politician and commander. He is also the executive chairman of the Lebanese Forces, the second largest Christian political party in Lebanon.
He took leadership of the LF in 1986. After the civil war, there was increased pressure by Syria on Geagea to accept the Syrian presence or face charges. Prior to his arrest, he was contacted by several sympathetic politicians and warned about the forthcoming proceedings and offered safe passage out of Lebanon. In 1994, four years after the end of the Lebanese Civil War, Geagea was tried for ordering four political assassinations, including the assassination of Lebanon's Prime Minister Rashid Karami in 1987, and the unsuccessful attempted assassination of Defense Minister Michel Murr in 1991. He denied all charges, but was found guilty and sentenced to four death sentences, each of which was commuted to life in prison. Geagea was imprisoned in solitary confinement below the Lebanese Ministry of Defense building in Beirut for the next 11 years. He is the only Lebanese militia leader to have been imprisoned for crimes committed during the Lebanese Civil War.
Following the Cedar Revolution, and the subsequent withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon, a newly elected Lebanese Parliament voted to grant him amnesty on 18 July 2005.
A Saudi cable leak from revealed that the LF was going bankrupt in 2012, because of that he requested financial help from Saudi Arabia and said according to ambassador that he was "ready to do what the kingdom asks me to do".
Geagea was born in the Ain el-Rummaneh district in Beirut on 25 October 1952 to a modest Maronite family from the town of Bsharri in northern Lebanon. His father, Farid Geagea was an adjutant in the Lebanese Army. He attended "Ecole Bénilde" elementary and secondary school in Furn el-Chebek, which was a free private school. With the aid of a scholarship from the Khalil Gibran association, he studied medicine at the American University of Beirut and then at Saint Joseph University. After the outbreak of civil war in 1975, Geagea interrupted his five years studies at the American University of Beirut. Although he would later continue his studies at Saint Joseph's University for two years, successfully completing his MD, Geagea never practiced medicine. He was an active member of the right-wing Phalangist Party, which became the main Christian fighting force upon the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975. He is married to Sethrida Geagea.
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