The group is suspected of having paid in 2013 and 2014, via a subsidiary, several million euros to terrorist groups, including the Islamic State organization.
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The Paris Court of Appeal has ruled. The court confirmed, Wednesday, May 18, the indictment of the cement group Lafarge for “complicity in crimes against humanity” concerning its activities until 2014 in Syria.
The cement manufacturer, now a subsidiary of Holcim, is suspected of having paid, in 2013 and 2014, several million euros to terrorist groups, including the Islamic State organization. The objective: to maintain the activity of a cement factory in Syria while the country was sinking into the war.
Against the opinion of the public prosecutor’s office, the Court of Appeal also pronounced the maintenance of the indictment of Lafarge for “endangering the lives of others”, in this case its former Syrian employees who were led to continue their activity in the cement plant of Jalabiya, while the region was plagued by numerous violence.
In the wake of this decision, the Lafarge group announced that he was going request the cancellation of this indictment from the Court of Cassation. “We strongly disagree with the decision of the Paris Court of Appeal. (…) We firmly believe that these charges should not be brought against Lafarge”he explains.
The group had obtained from the Paris Court of Appeal, in November 2019, the cancellation of its indictment in 2018 for “complicity in crimes against humanity”. But, in September 2021, the Court of Cassation overturned this decision of the Court of Appeal.
The civil parties welcomed, on Wednesday, a decision “iconic” as well as a “milestone” in this judicial investigation opened in June 2017. “It’s a huge success”welcomed France Inter Claire Tixeire, the lawyer for the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights who filed a civil action, because “This is the first time in the world that a company has been indicted for such a crime”.