Ex-Lafarge ceo jailed six-years for Syria terrorist payments

Lafarge’s former chief executive was jailed for six years and the Holcim subsidiary was fined nearly €5.7 million ($6.7 million) after being found guilty of paying terrorist groups to avoid shutting a plant during Syria’s civil war.

A Paris court on Monday convicted the cement maker and its former CEO Bruno Lafont for violating European sanctions and terrorism financing. Lafont was taken away by police officers and must start serving his prison term immediately. His lawyer said he’s appealing.

Lafarge made disbursements of about €5.6 million that benefited groups including Islamic State and the al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra over several months, according to the court. The Syria plant was eventually evacuated in September 2014 and Islamic State fighters took control days later.

Presiding Judge Isabelle Prévost-Desprez said the payments “helped to reinforce the existence of terrorist organisations” and “provided them with material means to continue spreading terror.”

Lafarge’s conviction comes after the firm pleaded guilty in 2022 to end a parallel US investigation and agreed to pay $777.8 million. In France, investigators have also charged Lafarge over suspicions it aided and abetted crimes against humanity in a separate part of the case. No decision has been made on any trial in that probe.

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Lafarge said the ruling on Monday concerns “a legacy matter involving conduct that occurred more than a decade ago and was in flagrant violation of Lafarge’s code of conduct.” The company added that it’s reviewing the court’s reasoning.

Christian Herrault, the former operations vice president at Lafarge, was handed a five-year jail term that he must also start serving immediately. The two men who ran the company’s Syrian unit at the time, Bruno Pescheux and Frédéric Jolibois, also got prison sentences. Herrault’s lawyer said he’s appealing, while attorneys for the two other declined to immediately respond to requests for comment.

Lafarge’s Jalabiyeh factory had only been operational for about six months when protests against the Syrian regime erupted in March 2011. As the plant’s security situation worsened, security payments were initially earmarked for groups such as the Free Syrian Army but, as the conflict evolved, disbursements to Islamic State started cropping up in November 2013, the court ruled.

Prévost-Desprez insisted that Lafarge and its executives at the time knew that keeping the plant operating in Syria would necessarily imply making payments get workers through and obtain raw materials given that the area around was controlled by terrorist organizations.

In one document referred to in the indictment and dated April 2014, Islamic State allegedly wrote: “Kindly allow the employees of Lafarge Cement Syria to pass after the needed check since they have paid their dues to us.”

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Prévost-Desprez said that Lafarge made “a choice in deciding to stay in Syria” while other Western companies left as early as 2012, adding that all defendants “were aware” of the terrorist nature of Islamic State. Contrary to what defendants claimed, the judge said that there was no evidence that the payments could be described as a “racket” made under duress to ensure the safety of local staffers.

The Paris judge made specific reference to a May 2014 shooting at a Brussels Jewish museum by a gunman who had spent time in Syria fighting with Islamic State and the beheading of American journalist James Foley in August that year by members of the terrorist organization.

Lafarge decided to maintain its activity in Syria “at all costs” after having made a $680 million investment, according to Prévost-Desprez. She added that the company and its executives at the time could have had no doubts about the danger the terrorist organizations presented.

Leaving Syria and depreciating the asset would have led to a negative market reaction, according to Prévost-Desprez, and could have hindered Lafarge as it was negotiating a merger of equals with Holcim. Conversely, staying in Syria could have enabled Lafarge to participate in the reconstruction of Syria at the end of the civil war as a quasi-monopoly, she said.

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