Hundreds of Yazidis file a lawsuit against a French cement company over its support for ISIS
Hundreds of Yazidi Americans, led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Nadia Murad, filed a lawsuit against the French cement company Lafarge on Thursday, accusing it of conspiracy. To provide material support to ISIS in Iraq and Syria.
The plaintiffs, all US citizens, are represented by human rights lawyer Amal Clune and former veteran US diplomat Lee Wolosky. The plaintiffs and their families are survivors of ISIS violence, which began when the organization’s militants targeted the Yazidi homeland in Sinjar in northern Iraq in 2014.
According to the lawsuit filed in a federal court in New York, Lafarge “aided and abetted acts of international terrorism committed by ISIS, and colluded with the organization and its intermediaries, and must pay compensation to the survivors.”
In October last year, Lafarge pleaded guilty before a US court to a charge of providing funds to groups the United States classifies as “terrorist,” including ISIS, so that the company could continue operating its business in Syria. Lafarge, which became part of Holcim, listed on the Swiss Stock Exchange in 2015, agreed to pay $778 million in fines as part of the guilty plea agreement.
Clooney said in a statement: “It is shocking that a leading global company would work side by side with ISIS while the organization was executing American civilians and committing genocide against the Yazidis.”
When Lafarge pleaded guilty in a US court last year, Holcim indicated in a statement that it was not involved in the matter and that it had “never worked in Syria.”
The lawsuit filed against Lafarge stated: “Before, during, and after the time when the organization carried out these brutal attacks on the Yazidis, the defendants were paying and conspiring with the organization.”
Murad, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018, said: For her efforts to end the use of rape as a weapon of war: “When ISIS attacked Sinjar, my family was killed and I was subjected to slavery. “I faced exploitation and abuse every day until I escaped.”
She continued: “Unfortunately, my story is not unique among Yazidi women. It is a reality experienced by thousands of Yazidi women. “What is most tragic is that the horror we were subjected to occurred with the eyes and support of powerful companies like Lafarge.”
The families of an American aid worker and American soldiers, all of whom were killed or injured by ISIS and the Al-Nusra Front, filed a similar lawsuit against Lafarge in July.
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2023-12-15 12:18:00
