France’s highest court on Sept. 7 overturned a lower-court decision to dismiss charges of complicity in crimes against humanity by cement company LaFarge, which is accused of paying ISIS and other militant groups at least 13 million euros to keep its factory in northern Syria running. The ruling by the Court of Cassation marks a major setback for Lafarge, which contested its responsibility for acts committed with funds it provided to the extremists.
Lafarge, which merged in 2015 with Swiss group Holcim, acknowledged that its Syrian subsidiary paid middlemen to negotiate with armed groups to allow movement of staff and goods within the war zone. The Paris Court of Appeal in 2019 dismissed the charges related to crimes against humanity, accpeting the company’s argument that the payments were not aimed at abetting ISIS atrocities. It did allow prosecution to proceed on three other charges—financing terrorism, violating an EU embargo. and endangering the lives of others. Eleven former employees of Lafarge Cement Syria challenged the decision at the Court of Cassation.
But the Cassation Court rejected the lower court’s finding on complicity, finding that “one can be complicit in crimes against humanity even if one doesn’t have the intention of being associated with the crimes committed.”
“Knowingly paying several million dollars to an organization whose sole purpose was exclusively criminal suffices to constitute complicity, regardless of whether the party concerned was acting to pursue a commercial activity,” the ruling added. (AFP)
Photo via MEMO
French company to pay $780 million over payoffs to ISIS
The US Justice Department has reached a $778 million criminal plea agreement with a French construction conglomerate that paid off the Islamic State to protect its Syria operations in 2013 and 2014. The company, Lafarge SA, a subsidiary of Switzerland-based Holcim Group with extensive operations in the United States, entered a guilty plea in federal court in Brooklyn to a count of conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization. (NYT)
Yazidi-Americans in lawsuit against French cement manufacturer
Nadia Murad, a human rights campaigner and recipient of the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize, and Yazidi-Americans filed a civil lawsuit against French industrial company Lafarge in the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York on Dec. 14. The complaints are under civil provisions of the Anti-Terrorism Act, intending to obtain compensation from Lafarge for its criminal conspiracy with the Islamic State in Iraq & Syria (ISIS). (Jurist)
Crimes against humanity case against French company may continue
France’s highest court has ruled that a case for complicity in crimes against humanity against the French cement maker Lafarge can continue, rejecting objections by the company. (TNH)