Two senior executives at French-Swiss cement maker LafargeHolcim, including its former CEO, were charged today over claims that top management turned a blind eye to payments to jihadists in Syria, a judicial source said. Lafarge is accused of paying the Islamic State group and other militants through a middleman between 2013 and 2014 so that the company’s factory in Jalabiya, northern Syria, could continue to operate despite the war.  Four people had already been charged over the case. At today’s hearings in Paris, Bruno Lafont, chief executive from 2007 to 2015, and the group’s former Syria chief Christian Herrault, appeared in court and were charged with “financing a terrorist organisation and “endangering the lives of others” and remanded in custody. Yesterday Eric Olsen, who took over from Lafont as CEO after the company merged with Switzerland’s Holcim, was charged with the same crimes. The three men have been in detention since Wednesday.
Three former officials at the Jalabiya factory were charged in the case last week. Lafarge’s Syrian subsidiary Lafarge Cement Syria (LCS) paid out some USD 5.6 million (4.7 million euros) between July 2012 and September 2014, according to a report commissioned by LafargeHolcim and seen by AFP. Of this, more than half a million dollars went to IS, according to the April report by US consultants Baker McKenzie. Herrault acknowledged earlier this year that Lafarge was involved in a “racket”, adding that he kept Lafont “regularly informed”, according to the report. But Lafont has denied that he knew what was happening, saying things had appeared to be “under control”. LCS is also suspected of using fake consulting contracts to buy fuel from IS, which took control of most of Syria’s strategic oil reserves in June 2013.

Source:AFP