Terrorism financing: former Lafarge executives request release from prison

The public prosecutor's office supported the appeal of the 69-year-old former CEO of the CAC 40 and his 75-year-old former deputy managing director, who were sentenced to six and five years in prison respectively, with immediate detention orders issued at the hearing. The prosecution requested their release under judicial supervision.

The decision will be announced on May 26.

"Every man is considered innocent until proven guilty and pre-trial detention is the exception to freedom," said Attorney General Frédéric Bernardo.

Bruno Lafont and Christian Herrault are among the nine defendants found guilty on April 13 by the Paris Criminal Court of having paid, in 2013 and 2014, via the Syrian subsidiary Lafarge Cement Syria (LCS), nearly 5,6 million euros to armed jihadist groups in order to maintain the activity of a cement plant in Jalabiya, in northern Syria.

All the defendants, including the company Lafarge - former flagship of French industry now swallowed up by its Swiss competitor Holcim - have appealed their conviction and will be retried in the coming months.

Because of their appeal of the judgment, the detention of Messrs. Lafont and Herrault now falls under the criteria of provisional detention, which differ from those of a warrant of committal.

Appearing via video conference from La Santé prison, wearing a white sweater under a grey sleeveless fleece, Bruno Lafont denied any risk of fleeing abroad despite his substantial financial assets.

"I have my honor to defend and I value it as something absolutely paramount, I will respect the conditions," said the disgraced, now retired, former CEO, his face etched with worry.

His lawyer, Jacqueline Laffont, denounced a "particularly shocking, striking, violent (incarceration) decision" against her client, who went to prison "with nothing, without money, without a toothbrush".

Although the prison administration placed the two men in the same cell, the public prosecutor's office requested that the judicial supervision prohibit them from having any contact. "We read, we talk, we watch television," Bruno Lafont told the court.

"Forty-three days and nights sharing the greatest intimacy and now they are supposed to be forbidden from speaking to each other," said Solange Doumic, Christian Herrault's lawyer, calling for "consistency" in the judicial system.