Lafarge heavily condemned in the United States for its support for terrorist organizations in Syria

Published on: 10/18/2022 – 17:18 The French cement group Lafarge will pay 778 million dollars to the United States for having supported terrorist organizations in Syria, including the Islamic State group, between 2013 and 2014. The company remains charged in France for “complicity in crimes against humanity”. Lafarge pleads guilty for supporting the Islamic State organization. Now under the leadership of the Swiss group Holcim, Lafarge announced on Tuesday October 18 that it had agreed to pay a financial penalty of 778 million dollars to the United States for having helped “terrorist” organizations in Syria between 2013 and 2014. The cement group French “accepted responsibility for the actions of the individual executives involved, whose behavior was in flagrant violation of codes of conduct,” Lafarge said in a statement, adding “deeply regret” those acts. Lafarge stresses that the U.S. Department of Justice acknowledged that the group had put in place appropriate monitoring procedures to henceforth detect and avoid any conduct of this nature and had, therefore, considered that it was “not necessary” to appoint an independent monitor. moreover to continue to cooperate fully with the investigation of the French authorities on the same subject but also says that it is ready to “defend itself against any action court which he considers unjustified”. Between 4.8 and 10 million euros for the Islamic State group The company is charged in France for “complicity in crimes against humanity” concerning its activities in Syria. It is suspected of having paid in 2013 and 2014, via its Syrian subsidiary Lafarge Cement Syria (LCS), several million euros to terrorist groups, including the Islamic State (IS) group, as well as to intermediaries, in order to maintain the activity of a cement factory in Syria, in Jalabiya, while the country was sinking into the war. The investigation of the French authorities estimated that these payments could have reached between 4.8 and 10 million euros for the EI group alone .Lafarge is also suspected of having sold cement from the factory to the IS and of having paid intermediaries to source raw materials from jihadist factions.The action of Holcim, the parent company of Lafarge, was temporarily suspended from the Swiss Stock Exchange on Tuesday after the publication We have the first information on the agreement with the US Department of Justice. With AFP