2024-01-16 16:19:52
In France, the Court of Cassation definitively validated on Tuesday the indictment of the French cement manufacturer Lafarge, a subsidiary of the Zougois Holcim, for complicity in crimes once morest humanity. The company maintained a cement factory in Syria until 2014 despite the presence of jihadists.
The Court, however, canceled his prosecution for endangering the lives of others, the second part of the case. French law is not applicable to Syrian employees of the factory, explained the highest court of the French judiciary in a press release.
The body was to rule on the indictments of Lafarge for complicity in crimes once morest humanity and endangering the lives of others of its employees in Syria, which had been confirmed by the Paris Court of Appeal in 2022 and which the company disputes.
The group is suspected of having paid in 2013 and 2014, via its Syrian subsidiary Lafarge Cement Syria (LCS), several million euros to jihadist groups, including the Islamic State (IS) organization, and to intermediaries, in order to to maintain the activity of a cement factory in Jalabiya, even as the country plunged into war.
Period of fighting
The text of Tuesday’s decision recalls that “between 2012 and 2015, the territory on which the cement plant is located was the subject of fighting and occupation by different armed groups, including the so-called Islamic State (IS) organization. “.
“During this period, the company’s Syrian employees continued their work, enabling the factory to operate, while foreign management was evacuated to Egypt in 2012, from where they continued to organize the activity of the cement plant”, it is indicated.
The Syrian employees were then “exposed to various risks, including extortion and kidnapping by armed groups, including ISIS”. The cement plant was finally evacuated urgently in 2014, shortly before ISIS seized it.
Only French law is applicable
The Court of Cassation, however, held that the offense of endangering the lives of others only occurs in the event of violation of an obligation imposed by a French law or regulation.
However, “Syrian law was applicable to the employment relationship between the French company and the Syrian employees, since they worked in Syria”.
This cancellation of the indictment has the effect of automatically granting the French company the status of “assisted witness”. “As it stands, she might not be referred to a court for these facts,” specifies the Court.
Contacted by the AWP press agency, a Lafarge spokesperson simply explained that “this is a question inherited from the past, which Lafarge SA is in the process of resolving within the framework of the legal procedure In France.”
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