The request for the release of the former CEO of Lafarge to be examined on May 19

The requests for release of former CEO of cement company Lafarge Bruno Lafont and his former right-hand man Christian Herrault, imprisoned in mid-April after their conviction for financing terrorism, will be examined on May 19 by the Paris Court of Appeal.

The two detainees having filed a request for release, these will be examined during the same hearing on May 19 at 13:30 p.m., AFP learned from the public prosecutor's office of the court of appeal.

Both 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.

Condemning the "bad faith" and "cowardice" of former CEO (2007-2015) Bruno Lafont, who maintains he was unaware of the payments to jihadist groups, the trial judges sentenced him to six years in prison with an immediate warrant for his arrest. The former top executive was arrested at the hearing and promptly imprisoned at La Santé prison in Paris.

His former right-hand man, Christian Herrault, then deputy managing director of the multinational, who "presided over negotiations with the Islamic State in order to sign a profitable agreement for the factory with the terrorist organization," according to the magistrates, was himself sentenced to five years in prison, also with a warrant for his arrest.

The company Lafarge, "ready to make any compromises with terrorist organizations", according to the terms of the first instance judgment, was sentenced to the maximum fine incurred, namely 1,125 million euros, as well as to pay jointly with four of its former executives a customs fine of 4,57 million euros for non-compliance with international financial sanctions.

Recognized as civil parties, the NGOs Sherpa and ECCHR welcomed the first instance judgment as a "major victory for the fight against impunity for multinationals involved in serious human rights violations".