Geagea Encourages Rifi to Refer Samaha Case to Judicial Council
Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea urged Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi to carry on with a request to refer the trail of ex-Minister Michel Samaha to the judicial council in the wake of his release from jail.
“I urge the Justice Minister to go ahead with the draft project to refer the case of Samaha to the judicial council,” said Geagea via twitter on Sunday.
“The Premier must put the draft forward for discussion in the first cabinet session for approval,” he added.
On Saturday, media reports said that Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi will make a request before cabinet to refer the trial of former Minister Michel Samaha to the judicial council in wake of his release from jail despite the damning evidence against him in his involvement in bombing plots in Lebanon.
He will also submit to cabinet a draft-law that he prepared to eliminate extraordinary trials and instead call for the establishment of “judicial powers” concerned with “significant and terrorist” crimes.
Rifi had handed head of the Mustaqbal bloc MP Fouad Saniora a copy of a draft-law that calls for the elimination of the military tribunal,.
Samaha was released from jail on Thursday after being arrested in 2012 after he was caught red-handed smuggling explosives from Syria for the purpose of carrying out bombings and assassinations in Lebanon.
He was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in jail.
The release sparked a wave of anger in Lebanon against the military court, most notably among the March 14 alliance.
Demonstrators on Friday blocked a number of roads in Beirut in protest against the release, while the March 14 youth groups staged a rally in front of Samaha's residence in Ashrafieh.
Source: Naharnet
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