A Lebanese military court has charged leading Christian politician Samir Geagea over deadly clashes in Beirut last October, a judicial source said on Thursday.

An official in Geagea’s Lebanese Forces party said the charge against him was political, and the investigation into the violence had been political from the start.

Seven people, all of them followers of the Iran-backed Hezbollah and its Shia ally the Amal Movement, were killed in the Oct. 14 clashes near an old frontline of the 1975-90 civil war.

Geagea is a strong critic of Hezbollah and has denied previous accusations by Hezbollah that the Lebanese Forces party was responsible for the deaths.