Family members of American troops killed during the battle against the Islamic State in Syria filed suit this weekend against Lafarge SA, a French construction company that pleaded guilty before a U.S. court in October to supporting ISIS and the al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front.
Lafarge was fined $778 million by a U.S. district judge in Brooklyn on October 18 after pleading guilty to providing material support to terrorism.
Lafarge and its Syrian affiliate were, in essence, accused of paying $6 million in protection money to ISIS, al-Qaeda, and other armed groups so they could operate a cement plant in the Jalabiyeh region of northern Syria during the brutal civil war that began in 2011. Another million dollars was paid to “third-party intermediaries” who facilitated the bribes.
The plant also purchased raw materials from ISIS-controlled local suppliers, and paid exorbitant “tolls” to various terrorist gangs and militias so its employees, supplies, and products could pass through their checkpoints. By the end of the cement plant operation, Lafarge was cutting ISIS in on a percentage of gross sales in a grotesque form of “taxation.”
According to court documents, the cement plant cost about $680 million to build, and Lafarge earned a little over $70 million from its activities. U.S. prosecutors hoped the massive fine would send a signal to international corporations that funding terrorism is never justified.
An internal security patrol member escorts a woman giving a middle-finger gesture, reportedly a wife of an Islamic State group fighter, in the al-Hol camp in al-Hasakeh governorate in north-eastern Syria, on July 23, 2019. (DELIL SOULEIMAN/AFP via Getty Images)
“The defendants partnered with ISIS, one of the most brutal terrorist organizations the world has ever known, to enhance profits and increase market share – all while ISIS engaged in a notorious campaign of violence during the Syrian civil war,” said Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco when the fine was imposed in October.
U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Breon Peace added that Lafarge sought to “leverage its relationship with ISIS for economic advantage, seeking ISIS’s assistance to hurt Lafarge’s competition in exchange for a cut of Lafarge’s sales.”
On Sunday, ABC News reported the families of three fallen U.S. service members filed suit against Lafarge for “unspecified economic and compensatory damages.”
The lawsuit referenced Lafarge’s guilty plea and the court documents from October, restating the prosecution’s case that the French company had a “business partnership with ISIS” that gave the Islamic State “seed capital it needed to transform from a fledgling militia in the early 2010s into a brutal terroristic behemoth with the capability and intent to kill Americans.”
Men, suspected of being affiliated with the Islamic State group, gather in a prison cell in the northeastern Syrian city of Hasakeh on October 26, 2019. (FADEL SENNA/AFP via Getty)
“Defendants put their economic self-interest above all else – ultimately making over $70 million in sales through their partnership with ISIS – even while ISIS was slaughtering innocent civilians, including Americans,” the lawsuit said.
ABC named the three U.S. service members and discussed the charges brought by their families:
Navy Chief Petty Officer Jason Finan of California was killed by an ISIS-planted IED in Iraq on Oct. 20, 2016. His widow and his parents said they have “experienced severe mental anguish, extreme emotional pain and suffering” since his death, according to the lawsuit.
Navy Senior Petty Officer Scott Cooper Dayton of Virginia was killed by an ISIS-planted IED in Ayn Issa, Syria, on Nov. 24, 2016. His widow and children are among the plaintiffs.
Former Marine David Berry was a 12-year combat veteran from Virginia, and was killed by an ISIS attack on the Corinthia Hotel in Libya on Jan. 27, 2015. At the time, Berry was working for a private contractor.
The family lawsuit pointed out that in addition to the offenses Lafarge pleaded guilty to in October, the company placed “tons of valuable cement and raw materials” in the hands of ISIS and the Nusra Front by “failing to safely shut down and evacuate the cement plant.”
The case is a civil suit filed under the U.S. Anti-Terrorism Act of 1990, which permits individuals to recover damages from businesses that provided financial support to foreign terrorist organizations.
“We expect more families to join the lawsuit and we look forward to bringing the case to trial before a jury of New Yorkers,” plaintiffs’ lawyer Lee Wolosky of Jenner & Block LLP said in a statement on Saturday.
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