Geagea's trial in Karami case opens

Christian warlord Samir Geagea's trial on charges of instigating the 1987 murder of Prime Minister Rashid Karami opened Friday, with the ex-militia leader facing a possible death penalty.

Geagea has already received three death sentences since he was arrested in April 1994, but all were commuted to life imprisonment. He was convicted of masterminding the 1990 assassination of rival Christian leader Dany Chamoun, along with his wife and two children.

He was also convicted in the failed assassination attempt on then-defense minister Michel Murr in 1991 and the murder of another rival Christian leader, Elias Zayek, in 1990.

Several leaders of Geagea's now-outlawed Lebanese Forces militia were sentenced to death in absentia for the bombing of a church in Zouk in 1994, but Geagea was acquitted for lack of enough evidence.

Geagea has pleaded innocent in all the trials, claiming they were of political nature because he refused to join pro-Syrian governments in Lebanon following the end of the 1975-90 civil war.

The prosecution in the Karami case has asked for the death sentence and Investigating Magistrate George Ghantous has formally charged Geagea and two security agents of the Lebanese Forces militia, with plotting the assassination.

The two agents, Ghassan Touma and Ghassan Menassa, remain at large

. The Magistrate has also asked for life term sentences at hard labor for 13 other suspects indicted in the Karami case.

Karami was killed by a bomb blast aboard his helicopter in June 1987

. In Friday's session at the nation's highest court, presiding judge Mounir Honein read the indictment and the defendants' statements.

The indictment listed reasons why Geagea wanted to get rid of Karami, whose plans he feared posed a threat to his authority in Christian east Beirut.

The trial was adjourned until Dec. 12.