About 430 Americans of Yazidi background and Nobel laureate Nadia Murad accused French conglomerate Lafarge of supporting brutal attacks on the population through a conspiracy with the Islamic State, according to a complaint reviewed by AFP. Lafarge considers the matter “a legacy issue, which Lafarge SA is managing responsibly, a Lafarge spokesperson said. The Yazidis suit points to $6m in payments from Lafarge to Islamic State in 2013 and 2014 to purchase raw materials from a Lafarge cement plant in Syria that continued to operate during the Syrian civil war. The plaintiffs’ complaint also references some $80.5m that US prosecutors found benefited participants in the conspiracy, including Islamic State and Lafarge. “The money and cement defendants supplied Islamic State went directly to Islamic State’s operations at precisely the time it was committing acts of international terrorism, including the slaughter of innocent people such as the Yazidis,” the complaint said.

Source: The Guardian December 16, 2023 19:50 UTC