Lebanon’s Aoun buries hatchet with jailed Geagea

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Lebanon’s opposition leader Michel Aoun visited a fellow-Maronite Christian civil war foe in his prison cell near Beirut on Wednesday, drawing a line under a bloody rift that tore their community apart 15 years ago.

“This visit today … comes to turn a page of the past that now belongs to history and to look to the future,” the retired general told reporters after his one-hour meeting with former militia chief Samir Geagea in a cell at the Defense Ministry.

Aoun returned to Lebanon on May 7 after 14 years of an exile that began after Syrian troops defeated his forces in 1990.

Earlier that year, Aoun’s men had battled Geagea’s Lebanese Forces militia for four months. Hundreds of people were killed in the conflict, which devastated parts of a Christian enclave.

Aoun, who last met Geagea in 1989, said he was moved by the meeting and called the continued detention of the ex-warlord an injustice. There was no word from Geagea on the encounter.

“I spent 15 years in exile and he has spent 11 years in jail. Both of us lived strong, spiritual experiences. We spoke more about sentimental matters than politics,” said Aoun, 70.

Geagea, 52, alone among civil war militia leaders, has paid a judicial price for his actions. He has been in prison since 1994, serving multiple life sentences for convictions over four killings or attempted killings of political rivals.

Many Maronites say Aoun’s exile and Geagea’s imprisonment symbolised how their community was victimised by a Syrian-dominated political order after the war.

Aoun returned days after Syria ended its 29-year military presence in Lebanon. Calls for Geagea’s release have increased in recent weeks but attempts to pass an amnesty in parliament before elections starting on May 29 have failed.

Aoun, a hero to his followers but distrusted by many of his former Muslim and Christian foes, said the meeting with Geagea should signal to both sides that the rift was over.