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Heard on 20 July as a witness by the investigating judges, the Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2012 to 2016, and current President of the Constitutional Council, argued that "no information" had reached him concerning the maintenance in Syria of Lafarge at the cost of financial arrangements with armed groups including the organization Islamic State (IS), according to his hearing revealed by Le Monde and that could consult AFP.
The French cementist At the end of June, Lafarge was charged in Switzerland with the extremely rare accusation of "complicity in crimes against humanity" in this explosive case of the alleged financing of terrorism in Syria. Magistrates said they had gathered "serious and concordant evidence" against the cementist to order his indictment for "complicity in crimes against humanity", "financing a terrorist enterprise", "endangering life" of former employees of his cement plant in Jalabiya, northern Syria, and "violation of an embargo". Eight executives and managers have already been charged in this case, including the former CEO of Lafarge from 2007 to 2015, Bruno Lafont, for financing a terrorist company and / or endangering the lives of others.
The cement maker is suspected of having paid through its subsidiary LCS nearly 13 million euros between 2011 and 2015 to maintain its cement plant in Syria, while the country sank into the war. These sums, which benefited in part to armed groups including the IS, included the payment of a "tax" to secure the movement of employees and goods, purchases of raw materials – including oil – to suppliers close to the IS and to the payment of intermediaries to negotiate with the factions, according to the survey. Recent survey evidence is now fueling suspicions about a possible sale of cement to the EI group: a contract for a deal was reported at a meeting in December 2014 after the jihadists seized the plant, according to A source close to the record.
Unlike other multinationals, the cement manufacturer decided to stay in Syria, exposing local employees to the risk of kidnapping while the management of the site had already left the factory and evacuated his expats. Lafarge has always called the safety of its teams "priority". However, among the many abducted employees, one was killed and another remains missing, according to testimony collected on the spot by AFP.
When he was charged in 2017, former CEO Bruno Lafont badured have been aware of an "agreement with Daesh" (Arabic acronym of IS) only in August 2014, and have decided at that time to close the plant. A few weeks later, on September 19, she will finally fall under the black flag of the Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi organization.
His ex-right-hand man, Christian Herrault, former deputy director-general in charge of several countries, including Syria, told him that he had informed him much earlier.
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