Prosecutors rule out French intelligence role in Lafarge payments to terror groups
The anti-terrorism branch of the French prosecution services this month recommended that the cement manufacturer Lafarge, and several of its former directors, be sent for trial on charges of “financing terrorism” and the “non-respect of international financial sanctions” over payments made between 2013 and 2014 to several terrorist groups, including Islamic State, to maintain the activities of its cement production plant in Syria. Mediapart has studied the 275-page document issued by the prosecution services, in which it dismisses the claims of several of the accused that France’s secret services and foreign affairs ministry were complicit in the deals made with the terrorist organisations. Fabrice Arfi reports.
InIn 2022, the giant French cement manufacturing group Lafarge, now merged with Swiss cement maker Holcim, pleaded guilty in a US court to the charge of funding terrorist organisations in Syria between 2013 and 2014 to ensure the security and activity of its cement factory at Jalabiyeh, in the north of the country, and was ordered to pay close to 778 million dollars in fines and forfeiture.
