PARIS – According to his attorneys, the United States slapped heavy sanctions on the French cement giant for its support of the Islamic State, and the former CEO of Lafarge Bruno Lavon “strongly” denied” paying money to “terrorist organisations” in Syria.
In the same statement, Lavon claimed that Al-parent Alajj’s firm, the Swiss Holcim Group, was undertaking an inquiry “to criminalise it solely.”
The Lafarge Company, which merged with the Swiss Holsim Group in 2015, said on Tuesday that it has admitted guilt and agreed to pay a $ 778 million fine to the US for aiding “terrorist” groups like the Islamic State between 2013 and 2014.
Lavon, the company’s former CEO until 2015, responded to this “sudden” arrangement by denying “heavily informing him of any payments in favour of terrorist groups or supplies to these groups.”
According to the testimony of the parties involved, “Holsim’s so-called investigation appears to target Bruno Lavon and former Lafarge group managers exclusively, and Holsim has consistently obstructed the pursuit of the truth,” the statement read.
The former CEO said, “This is questioned by the facts and obligations that Lafarge has approved in the United States, led by Holsim.”
Lavon, who is accused of financing terrorism in the context of the judicial investigation that started since 2017 in Paris, wants to listen to the investigating judges again in order to “eat some modern elements” and “request to lift confidentiality from certain documents” and “listen to some of the people who They may introduce new elements to the file. ”
The Lafarge Group is charged with participating in atrocities against people.
The Syrian branch of Lafarge of Cement, “Lafarge of Cement Syria,” was accused of providing the Islamic State and middlemen with roughly 13 million euros in 2013 and 2014 in order to keep operating its facility in Jalabia, Syria, despite the civil fighting there.
According to the investigation conducted by the French police, the organisation may have paid the Islamic State alone between 4. 8 and 10 million euros.
Holsim said that the events related to the Lafarge Factory in Syria violated their values and that these events were hidden from its board of directors at the time of the merger in 2015.
Human rights organisations in France charged Lafarge in 2017 with funding armed groups, including the Islamic State, 12.79 million dollars to continue operating in Syria between 2011 and 2015.
The former Al-Alafar director gets relieved of his responsibility for financing terrorism.
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