On 27 October, the head of the far-right Lebanese Forces (LF) party, Samir Geagea, failed to turn out for a hearing regarding his involvement in the Tayouneh massacre after being summoned by the Army Intelligence Directorate.

Geagea was expected at the Defense Ministry building early on Wednesday, the same building where he was imprisoned for 11 years for his role in the Sayyidet al Najet Church bombing.

Judge Fadi Akiki, who is in charge of the investigation into the 14 October massacre, expected to hear Geagea’s testimony on his role as the leader of the party that was confirmed by the Interior Ministry to have been behind the attack.

Geagea previously said he would refuse to testify before the court unless Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah is also summoned.

One day before the hearing Geagea’s lawyers filed a memo arguing that the summoning was “illegal.” That same day, Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi met with President Michel Aoun, Speaker Nabih Berri, and Prime Minister Najib Mikati to propose a “solution” following Geagea’s summoning.

The end result was a deal brokered between Berri and Al-Rahi regarding both the investigation into last year’s blast at the Port of Beirut and the Tayouneh massacre.

The solution calls for the parliamentary deferral of former PM Hassan Diab and the former three ministers summoned by embattled judge Tarek Bitar to the Higher Council for the Trial of Presidents and Ministers and for Bitar to continue the investigations without questioning those officials.

At least 68 people have been arrested in connection to the deadly shooting on 14 October in the Tayouneh neighborhood of Beirut, and several members of the LF reportedly confessed that Geagea’s head of security, Simon Musallam, was in charge of orchestrating the attack on supporters of the Hezbollah and Amal Movement parties.