Lebanon’s Speaker Nabih Berri hit backThursday at remarks made by Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea in which the latter expressed his rejection of reelecting Berri as speaker

Lebanon’s Speaker Nabih Berri hit backThursday at remarks made by Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea in which the latter expressed his rejection of reelecting Berri as speaker.

“[Geagea] is right, he cannot bear me, and I am the [person] who is carrying him and enduring [the burden],” Berri said sarcastically. However, the speaker did not elaborate further.

Geagea had told Al-Akhbar newspaper in an interview published Thursday that in the event that March 14 coalition ‘wins’ a majority in the parliamentary elections next year, it would not vote for Berri as a speaker.

“Despite our respect towards him, we cannot bear Berri as speaker of parliament due to his current political alignment.” 

Geagea, who was tried on 1994 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, was released from prison on 26 July 2005 as a result of an amnesty law. Geagea