(MENAFN) According to reports, the latest hearing in a French court has turned its attention to how cement company Lafarge interacted with armed factions in Syria while continuing its operations during 2013 and 2014.

Lafarge, along with eight former executives, stands trial in Paris, accused of financing terrorism amid Syria’s civil conflict. The company itself faces charges as a legal entity.

During proceedings, judges questioned the defendants about alleged “negotiations” between Lafarge’s Syrian subsidiary and various militant groups, including ISIS (Daesh).

Former Lafarge CEO Bruno Lafont stated that he would have closed the Syrian facility earlier had he been aware of these contacts. “Until Aug. 27, 2014, I never suspected that payments had been made to terrorist organizations,” he said.

Bruno Pescheux, who served as CEO of Lafarge Cement Syria (LCS) from 2008 to 2014 and is also on trial, said that at the time his main concern was keeping the company’s trucks operational. “These payments (made to terrorist organizations) were intended to allow our employees to move around freely,” he explained. He confirmed that Syrian defendant Firas Tlass, acting as an intermediary, had met multiple times with ISIS members. Commenting on an email listing specific payments, Pescheux added, “I had no means to verify whether the groups listed actually received the amounts indicated.”

Ahmad Al Jaloudi, a former security manager for Lafarge in Syria and a defendant, described Tlass’s regional representative Bashir Hadad as his main point of contact for handling all issues, including those involving Daesh. Concerning a November 2013 meeting with an ISIS member, Al Jaloudi said, “The aim was to obtain information about nine trucks whose movement had been blocked.”

Christian Herrault, Lafarge’s former deputy director general of operations in Syria, noted that payments to armed groups began in October 2012 and emphasized that Lafont had been informed about the negotiations. “I told him that the negotiations had taken place,” he said.
Frederic Jolibois, CEO of Lafarge Cement Syria between 2014 and 2016, argued that these negotiations occurred under extreme pressure.

As stated by reports, documents published in 2021 suggest that Lafarge had financed ISIS with the awareness of French intelligence agencies. These records indicate that the company regularly updated French authorities about its contacts with the group. However, according to the reports, no government or intelligence body ever warned Lafarge that its actions constituted financing terrorism, while ISIS reportedly used Lafarge cement for constructing shelters and tunnels.

The judicial investigation into Lafarge began in 2017, with several top executives, including Lafont, charged with financing terrorism. In October 2024, three investigating judges decided that Lafarge and four former executives would stand trial for supporting a terrorist organization and violating a European Union embargo that prohibits financial or commercial dealings with terrorist groups, including ISIS.

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