K The French Supreme Court accuses the industrial group Lafarge of “Crimes against humanity”: it has provided ISIS with cement and money
On Tuesday, the French supreme court overturned a lower court decision to dismiss charges against industrial giant Lafarge of being guilty of "complicity in crimes against humanity" by financing terrorism in Syria, according to France24.
The ruling of the Court of Cassation, one of the four courts of last resort in France, is a significant setback for the cement producer accused of having paid approximately 13 million euros to terrorist groups, including ISIS (15 , $ 3 million) so its cement plant in northern Syria could continue to operate until the country's multi-faceted civil war begins.
In 2015, Swiss group Holcim merged with Lafarge and had to admit that its Syrian subsidiary paid "representatives" to negotiate with terrorist groups to allow the cement factory to remain open. The company denied any responsibility for the money that ended up in the hands of the terrorists.
The court ruled that Lafarge should be prosecuted for violating an EU embargo, financing terrorism and endangering the lives of others.
The French supreme court ruled on Tuesday that "one can be complicit in crimes against humanity even if one does not intend to be associated with the crimes committed." when they defended themselves by saying that, after all, they were only doing business.
"It is sufficient to knowingly pay several million dollars to an organization whose sole purpose was criminal to constitute a complicity, regardless of whether the interested party was acting to carry out a commercial activity," the court added.
Meanwhile, the Turkish agency Anadolu has uncovered a treasure trove of documents showing that Lafarge had secret relations with the terrorist group Daesh / ISIS. He also revealed that French spy agencies used Lafarge's network of contacts in Syria to gather information. None of the intelligence agencies informed the company that it was committing a crime for funding terrorist groups.
Anadolu Agency accessed documents showing cement giant Lafarge constantly informed French intelligence agencies about its ties with the Daesh / ISIS terror group.
French Supreme Court upheld charges against Lafarge of 'financing terrorism' https://t.co/zIq6bb6vco pic.twitter.com/U8j5TdFj7U
– ANADOLU AGENCY (@anadoluagency) September 7, 2021
According to the news agency, the director of security of Lafarge, Jean-Claude Veillard, has asked the intelligence directorate of the French Interior Ministry to maintain relations with "local actors" to continue operations. A French intelligence officer asked the company: "Could you please provide more details on the cement supplied to Daesh?"
Anadolu also obtained a 2018 court statement, made by a French intelligence officer, codenamed AM 02, which stated: "We approached the situation purely opportunistically, leveraging Lafarge's continued work," adding that the company was sending cement to terrorist groups between 2012-14.
In 2018, Reuters pointed out that France asked the United States not to bomb the cement plant in a plea dating back to 2014.
More recently, we noticed that defense contractor PlanetRisk, a data collection company that found it could monitor US special operations, found that US military forces traveled to the cement factory in northern Syria more than once between 2017-18.
Did Lafarge's operations extend far beyond concrete into northern Syria and were perhaps a point of information for the United States and allied forces?
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The article KThe French supreme court accuses the industrial group Lafarge of "Crimes against humanity": it has supplied cement and money to ISIS comes from ScenariEconomici.it .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/kla-corte-suprema-francese-accusa-il-gurppo-industriale-lafarge-di-crimini-contro-lumanita-ha-fornito-cemento-e-soldi-allisis/ on Thu, 09 Sep 2021 17:00:13 +0000.