* Samir Geagea was born on October 25, 1952 in Ain al-Remaneh, one of the suburbs of Beirut. He is one of three children of Farid Geagea, an adjutant in the Lebanese Army. The conditions of his youth wore modest, though he is part of one major Maronite families based in Bshari, which is located in the mountains regions of Northern Lebanon.

* He completed his primary and secondary level education in Ain al-Remaneh. Even in youth. He belonged to student branches of the Kataeb party, the largest Christian party in the country. After high school, he was able to study medicine at the American University of Beirut (AUB) due partly to a Khalil Gibran Association scholarship. (Gibran was also a native of Bshari.) With the out breaking of fighting in Beirut in 1975 and the division of the city, Samir Geagea had to leave AUB after live years of study. He then transferred to St. Joseph University, located in the Christian area.

* When fighting broke out between Christian militias and Palestinian-Muslim-leftist alliance in 1976 in Kura region in northern Lebanon, Samir Geagea interrupted his academic work to help defend the area. During the next few months, he reorganized the party militia in the north (Bshari, Kura, Zgharta). However, after the Syrian army entered the Kura at the end of the summer, he returned to his medical studies in Beirut.

* In 1978, only a few months from his degree, Samir Geagea again broke away from his studies. At the request of Bashir Gemayel, he agreed to return briefly to help the newly formed Lebanese Forces-but only a temporary basis so that he could complete his studies. However, in the first operation Geagea was wounded in the opening fusillade. He was evacuated unconscious, moved to a hospital, and later transferred to France to recuperate.

* When he returned to Lebanon, Mr. Geagea, now responsible for the Lebanese Forces and the Kataeb along northern front, moved to a convent in the upper mountains of Jbeil where he reorganized the youth, opened training centers, and began the development of fortifications opposite Syrian positions. He established a headquarters at Qattara, an extremely isolated village high in the mountains and cut off from population centers. He remained in charge of this sector until early 1983.

* In January 1983, the Lebanese Forces command council appointed Samir Geagea, who retained his responsibilities on the northern front, concurrent of its forces in the Shuf-Aley sector of Mt. Lebanon, an area from which the Lebanese Forces were forced to retreat in September 1983.

* After the "mountain war," Mr. Geagea returned to his headquarters in Qattara, where he developed, organized, managed, and carried out a political and cultural education and training program for regional leader in the Lebanese Forces. It was during this period that his opposition to the Christian and Lebanese situation began to be known-most notably his critiques of the traditional Christian establishment and its dedication to personal profits at the expense of the public interest. This call for social change led the Kataeb party to "expel" him. The resulting upheaval in the Lebanese Forces brought Geagea, Karim Pakradouni, and Elie Hobeika (then the security chief of the Lebanese Forces) to force the resignation of the then-commander of the Lebanese Forces, Fouad Abu Nadir. Elie Hobeika was named head of its executive committee, Geagea chief of staff.

* On January 15, 1986, Samir Geagea led a movement that removed Elie Hobeika and due to the improprieties of the latter and, above all, to his having signed the so-called "Tripartite Accord" with Syria. Every sector of Christian opinion was opposed to the accord.                                       

* After the January 15 operation, when he became commander of the Lebanese Forces, Samir Geagea was resorted to full membership in the Kataeb and indeed elected permanent member of the political bureau of the party. Within months, he had reorganized the Lebanese Forces and established standardized bases of recruitment, selection, training, and promotion and founded the first formal Lebanese Forces military academy at Ghusta. At the same time, the Lebanese Forces became for the first time a political movement with clear-cut socio-economic objectives and programs and with friendly and cooperative ties to many foreign countries. The Lebanese Forces also began the most ambitious and systemic social welfare program ever undertaken in Lebanon and intended to help the disadvantaged and displaced. Although these programs have since been suspended in deference to government demands, the government has yet to replace them

* Since 1989, the Lebanese Forces has worked diligently with the national government and foreign friends to apply the principals of the Taef Accord intended to facilitate the restoration of national unity and the reconstruction of the political, economic, and social foundations of the country. Even in the face of others' continuing and serious violations of the spirit and intent of Taef, Samir Geagea continued to espouse a solution to the challenges Lebanon faces that is bad on national solidarity and consensus. Because he refused to be a partner in the farce that is ruling Lebanon today, Geagea became a political prisoner.  

*  The Lebanese Parliament passed legislation on 18 July 2005 to free Samir Geagea. Only the Hezbollah deputies abstained from voting. Geagea's party, the Lebanese Forces, held major celebrations throughout Lebanon.

Geagea was released from prison 26 July 2005 and left Lebanon for medical tests. "I have spent 11 horrific years in solitary confinement in a 6-square-meter dungeon three floors underground without sunlight or fresh air. But I endured my hardships because I was merely living my convictions," he was quoted saying upon his release.