French cement giant guilty of financing IS and other militant groups in Syria

French cement giant guilty of financing militant groups including Islamic State1 hour agoShareSaveAdd as preferred on GoogleJames GregoryReutersFrench cement maker Lafarge has been found guilty of paying millions of dollars in protection money to jihadist groups, including the group calling itself Islamic State (IS), to keep its business running in Syria during the civil war.Eight ex-Lafarge employees were also found guilty of financing terrorism, including former CEO Bruno Lafont who was jailed for six years on Monday.The court in Paris found that Lafarge paid groups $6.5m (€5.59m; £4.83m) between 2013 and 2014 to keep its plant operating in northern Syria.Judge Isabelle Prevost-Desprez said such payments had allowed proscribed organisations to gain control of the country's natural resources, enabling them to finance attacks across the Middle East and Europe."It is clear to the court that the sole purpose of the funding of a terrorist organisation was to keep the Syrian plant running for economic reasons. Payments to terrorist entities enabled Lafarge to continue its operations," Prevost-Desprez said."These payments took the form of a genuine commercial partnership with IS," she added.The factory in Jalabiya, northern Syria, was bought by Lafarge in 2008 for $680m and began operations in 2010, months before civil war began in 2011.Prosecutors said Lafarge employees were housed in the nearby town of Manbig and needed to cross the Euphrates river to access the plant.Payments were made between 2013 and September 2014, prosecutors said, and included €800,000 to secure safe passage and €1.6m to purchase source materials from quarries under Islamic State control.Nusra Front, which was affiliated to al-Qaeda and proscribed by the EU and others, was also among the groups Lafarge paid money to, judges said.Alongside Lafont, former deputy managing director Christian Herrault was given a five-year prison sentence, while Firas Tlass, a Syrian ex-member...