UPDATE: France condemns the Lafarge cement company and its former CEO for financing jihadist groups such as ISIS | International
In breaking news, the following story has emerged from the international scene.
The Paris correctional court found the French cement company Lafarge and eight former leaders of the group guilty on Monday of financing terrorism in 2013 and 2014. The court considers it proven that they paid jihadist groups to allow a plant to continue operating in the middle of the war in Syria. The former CEO between 2008 and 2015, Bruno Lafont, has been sentenced to six years in prison with immediate imprisonment for financing terrorism. The 69-year-old former leader of CAC 40 (which represents the performance of the 40 most liquid and capitalized French companies) was arrested in the courtroom and immediately transferred by the police. His defense announced that he will appeal the sentence and request his release, describing the imprisonment order as “unjustified”. The company has been sentenced to the maximum fine of 1,125 million euros. In addition, the court sentenced her to pay a customs fine of 4.57 million euros, jointly with four former directors of the group, for non-compliance with international financial sanctions, another key crime in the process. The company, later absorbed by the Swiss group Holcim, is the world’s largest producer of construction materials. The court has ruled that he made payments to three jihadist organizations, including the Islamic State group (ISIS), for a total of close to 5.6 million euros. The court also noted that these funds made it possible to “prepare terrorist attacks” in France. Some victims of the attacks of November 13, 2015, in fact, constituted themselves as a private prosecution, considering this matter as one of the “gears” that contributed to the attacks. A New York court already sentenced the company and its subsidiary in Syria in 2022 to pay a total of 777.78 million dollars in fines, for the same reason, after pleading guilty to the “astonishing crime”, as defined by the prosecutor. Lafarge purchased the raw materials needed to make cement from ISIS-controlled suppliers and paid a form of monthly revolutionary tax to armed groups so that employees, customers and suppliers could pass through the armed groups’ checkpoints on the roads surrounding the Jalabiyeh plant. ISIS, which also received payments based on the amount of cement sold, provided Lafarge workers with safe passages that were used as evidence in the case. The court has now also sentenced seven other former managers of the cement company to sentences of between 18 months and seven years in prison. Likewise, he ordered the immediate imprisonment of former deputy director general Christian Herrault, sentenced to five years. The Jalabiya plant, despite the payments made, was finally urgently evacuated by Lafarge on September 18, 2014 due to the advance of ISIS. The next day, it fell into the hands of the jihadists.
Analysis and Perspective:
Our editorial team will continue to monitor this situation as new details emerge.
World leaders are expected to respond to these developments in the coming days.
We encourage our readers to follow this developing story for the latest information.
Source: This article was originally published in another language by Internacional en EL PAÍS and has been translated and adapted for our global English-speaking audience. Read the original article here.