BLOOD MONEY! Cement Giant Lafarge Bosses Linked to Hima Cement Uganda, Faces Trial in France for Bankrolling ISIS & al-Qaeda killers

Hold onto your hard hats, folks! The cement giant that once owned Uganda’s Hima Cement is now mixing in a whole different kind of trouble — terror money!

French prosecutors on Tuesday opened a sensational trial against Lafarge, a subsidiary of Switzerland’s Holcim Group, accusing it of funding deadly jihadist groups including ISIS and al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front to keep its business empire alive in war-torn Syria.

Investigators say Lafarge’s Syrian branch splashed out €5 million (about UGX 20 billion) between 2013 and 2014 — paying off the same militants who were butchering civilians — just to keep trucks moving and its multimillion-dollar cement plant running.

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The scandal, described by legal experts as unprecedented in French history, could see Lafarge and eight former top executives face up to 10 years in jail if found guilty of financing terrorism and breaching European sanctions.

In a defensive statement, Lafarge tried to pour cold water on the heat, saying the case involves “actions that occurred more than a decade ago” and were “in flagrant violation” of its corporate code of conduct. The company insists the accused former bosses no longer work with them.

But that’s not washing away the dirt.

Ugandan Link

Ugandans will remember Lafarge as the same French giant that bought 100% of Hima Cement back in 1999, rebranding it into one of Uganda’s biggest cement producers. Under their watch, production skyrocketed to 1.7 million tonnes by 2018 from just 20,000 tonnes in 1994.

However, Lafarge’s parent company Holcim later sold off its 70% stake in Hima Cement to Uganda’s Sarrai Group in 2023 for $84 million, quietly exiting the Ugandan market.

Now the once-mighty cement kingpin faces its dirtiest fight yet — not in the market, but in court — accused of striking deals with ISIS warlords and rebel groups to “keep business flowing.”

The trial in Paris is expected to run until December 16, with global eyes watching as Lafarge’s dark past gets unearthed, one bag of dirty cement at a time.