Cement firm Lafarge found guilty of financing terrorism in Syria

Lafarge found guilty of financing terrorism in Syria Keystone-SDA

French cement manufacturer Lafarge and eight former executives were found guilty on Monday of financing terrorism in 2013 and 2014, for paying jihadist groups to keep a factory running in the midst of the war in Syria.

The company, which has since been merged with Swiss cement manufacturer Holcim group, made payments to three jihadist organisations, including the Islamic State, to the tune of nearly €5.6 million, the Paris Criminal Court established in its judgment. The Court emphasised that the payments had enabled jihadists to “prepare terrorist attacks”, notably those of January 2015 in France.

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“This method of financing terrorist organisations, and primarily the Islamic State, was essential to the terrorist organisation’s control over Syria’s natural resources, enabling it to finance terrorist acts in the area and planned abroad, particularly in Europe,” said the president of the court, Isabelle Prévost-Desprez.

The company Lafarge, as a legal entity, was fined the maximum possible amount of €1.125 million and ordered to jointly pay a fine (along with four of its former executives) of €4.57 million for violating international financial sanctions, another offence at the heart of the trial. The court determined that Lafarge had established a “genuine commercial partnership with ISIS.” However, no confiscation orders were issued.

Former CEO arrested

Going beyond the recommendations of the National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office (PNAT), the Paris criminal court handed down a six-year prison sentence and issued an arrest warrant for Lafarge’s former CEO (2007-2015) Bruno Lafont, condemning his “bad faith” and “cowardice” during the legal proceedings. Lafont, who maintains he was not informed of the payments to jihadist groups, was arrested in the courtroom and immediately taken away by police officers.

The court handed also sentenced his former right-hand man, Christian Herrault, then deputy managing director of the multinational, who, according to the judges, “presided over negotiations with the Islamic State in order to sign a profitable agreement for the factory with the terrorist organisation.” He was sentenced to five years in prison with an arrest warrant.

Immediately after the hearing, the lawyers for the two imprisoned senior executives indicated that they would appeal the decision.

The court also handed down sentences ranging from 18 months in prison for a Norwegian security manager at Lafarge to seven years in prison for the fugitive Syrian intermediary who managed relations and payments to jihadist groups.

Adapted from French by AI/ac

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