French prosecutors seek to prosecute cement company for Daesh funding

French prosecutors have recommended that cement maker company, Lafarge, face trial on charges of funding terrorist groups, including Daesh, during its past activities in Syria.

Lafrage is a French global company that is part of the Swiss Holcim group, one of the world’s largest cement manufacturers.

The company has acknowledged that it paid nearly 13 million euros to middlemen to keep its Syrian cement factory running in 2013 and 2014.

France’s anti-terror prosecution unit (PNAT) seeks to put the company and nine of its former managers in the dock, AFP quoted a source close to the case as saying.

Prosecutors  said the company “either intended the funds to be used entirely, or in part, towards the objective of committing terrorist acts, or was aware that this was how they would be used.”

Lafarge however rejected the accusations, saying it had no responsibility for the money winding up in the hands of terrorist groups.

The company pulled out its foreign staff from the Syrian site in 2012 but kept local workers in place until 2014, when the site was evacuated just before Daesh took it over.

Last month, France’s top appeals court ruled that Lafarge and the former managers could be charged with complicity in crimes against humanity over the payoffs. Prosecutors are still investigating those accusations.

The French company was also charged in the US in 2022 for making $10 million in payments to Daesh and other terrorist groups including al-Nusrah.

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