Cement giant in crosshairs: Amal Clooney seeks US justice for Yazidis brutalised by Isis

Lebanese-British barrister Amal Clooney. (Photo: EPA-EFE / Jason Szenes)

By J Brooks Spector

19 Dec 2023

International human rights lawyer Amal Clooney takes a mighty swing at a big target on behalf of hundreds of little guys — the Yazidi.

Amal Clooney may not be someone one instantly connects to the fate of one of the least-known cultural minorities on the planet, but sometimes things are not what they seem at first blush.

For some, Amal Clooney, wife of A-list actor George Clooney, is a habitué of equally A-list parties, balls and galas in New York City.

But here is the crucial bit. She also has some A-list lawyerly chops and a reputation as a human rights advocate.

Well beyond that party scene, Amal Clooney’s client list includes the former president of the Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed; WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange; former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko; Iraqi human rights activist Nadia Murad (and thereby a connection to the Yazidi), as well as Nobel laureate Maria Ressa, Al Jazeera’s Mohamed Fahmy and Myanmar journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo.

Previously, Amal Clooney has worked for the British government and at the UN, and she is now also an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s law school. She and her husband co-founded the Clooney Foundation for Justice.

This time, however, we are not examining her earlier legal efforts, let alone contemplating her appearances on the party circuit. The focus now is on her engagement with the fate of the Yazidi, a small ethnic and religious group that for centuries lived in the hills of northern Iraq.

During Isis’ ascendency across that landscape, they were pursued and treated abominably. Aside from the usual deaths from hunger, thirst, disease, exhaustion and horrific treatment by their tormentors, many were forced to seek unforgiving refuge on the barren slopes of Mt Sinjar, even as others were captured and sold — or given — as sex slaves to Isis militia members.

Read more in Daily Maverick: The tragedy of the Yazidis: Who are they, where do they come from, why are they so persecuted?

A network of financiers

In her newest legal effort, Amal Clooney is now representing 400-plus Yazidis who fled from Iraq to the US. They are now seeking compensation from European cement giant, Lafarge, (in association with its Syrian subsidiaries) over payments to Isis that enabled it to carry out its depredations against the Yazidi during their multi-year reign of terror.

Clooney, with Lee Wolosky — a former special counsel to President Biden — co-wrote a column in The New York Times the other day, after the brief had been filed with the courts, explaining the reasons for the pursuit of Lafarge. The column is well worth quoting at length both for the force and the precision of its argument.

They wrote, “Isis was one of the most brutal terrorist organisations in modern history. At its peak, it exercised control of territory the size of Britain, recruited tens of thousands of fighters and carried out or inspired attacks in over two dozen countries.

“It relied on a network of financiers to realise such global ambitions. But most of that network’s members have yet to face justice, and most Isis victims have yet to receive any compensation for their losses.

“That is why we filed a federal lawsuit last week on behalf of more than 400 members of the Yazidi community, a religious minority systematically persecuted by Isis, to hold responsible an international conglomerate that paid millions of dollars to Isis while the group was committing a well-documented genocide against them.”

They argue that, previously, it has been easy for private entities to evade responsibility for aiding and abetting conflicts, even as the victims of it paid the price for such complicity.

The authors noted that the world largely learnt about the fate of the Yazidi from the advocacy journalism of Nadia Murad.

As they wrote, “She was 21 when Isis invaded her hometown in August 2014, murdering thousands of men, raping young girls and displacing her tight-knit community in northern Iraq. She was kidnapped, sold into sexual slavery and abused by 12 Isis assailants over many weeks.

“Many of her family members, including her mother and six brothers, were murdered. Her young niece and nephew are still missing.”

Despite this treatment meted out to over 200,000 Yazidi, “the group has had little hope of receiving meaningful compensation for the injuries they suffered at the hands of Isis — until now.”

Guilty plea

A 2022 US court outcome has changed the landscape. Lafarge (now a subsidiary of the Swiss-based Holcim Group) pleaded guilty to providing material support to Isis, with the corporation admitting to “an illegal conspiracy to pay Isis and the Al-Nusra Front, another US-designated foreign terrorist organisation, nearly $6-million in exchange for various benefits, including getting Isis to take out its competition by blocking or taxing the import of competing cement.

And Lafarge did not just provide money to the group; it also provided cement that Isis reportedly used to construct underground tunnels in which it held and tortured Yazidi and Western hostages. All of this was a crime under US law — as the company knew.”

Lafarge has even admitted that its payments to Isis continued for months after the genocide began.

Clooney and Wolosky explained that “in 2022, when Lafarge pleaded guilty to conspiring to provide material support to a terrorist organisation, it was the first time the US government had prosecuted a corporation for that crime. The company admitted its illegal behaviour and was subject to penalties of over $777-million.

“But the victims of Isis were never given the opportunity to be heard, and no portion of the financial penalty that the company paid to the Department of Justice has been used to compensate them. [Italics added]

“We are asking Attorney General Merrick Garland to exercise his discretion to remedy this injustice and see that those funds are used to compensate the people who suffered under Isis’ brutality.

“Victims should also have access to the Department of Justice’s seizure of three terrorist organisations’ cryptocurrency accounts — its largest ever.”

‘Nothing but the clothes on their back’

clooney yazidis US isis Lebanese-British barrister Amal Clooney. (Photo: EPA-EFE / Jason Szenes)

In the newly filed suit, the plaintiffs’ brief reads: “This Anti-Terrorism Act case is brought on behalf of members of the Yazidi community who are US citizens and were injured by terrorist attacks carried out by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (‘Isis’).

“On 3 August 2014, the entire world watched as Isis attacked Yazidi villages in northern Iraq, destroying everything in sight and forcing the Yazidis to flee to the barren Sinjar Mountain. Thousands of Yazidis were murdered and kidnapped. Many died of starvation and dehydration.

“Yazidi women who survived were sold as sex slaves while boys were forced to become child soldiers for Isis.

“Hundreds of thousands of Yazidis ultimately fled to internally displaced persons camps in Kurdistan. The Yazidis’ once-idyllic mountainside villages were left abandoned in a sea of rubble.”

In response to that earlier settlement, the brief notes, “On 18 October 2022, the Department of Justice announced its first-ever prosecution of a corporation for conspiring to provide material support to a terrorist organisation.

“According to Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco, Lafarge S.A. (‘Lafarge’), and Lafarge Cement Syria S.A. (‘LCS’), with Lafarge Cement Holding Limited (‘Lafarge Cyprus’), ‘partnered with Isis, one of the most brutal terrorist organisations 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’.”

The brief stated that as part of their guilty plea, Lafarge and LCS agreed to a 52-page statement of facts that established their criminal liability under various sections of the Anti-Terrorism Act, giving rise to their civil liability.

The brief added, “Plaintiffs in this action are Yazidis who are US citizens. Many of them were, or had relatives who were, translators for the US Army and served the United States. They are farmers, schoolteachers, housewives, and small business owners whose lives were upended on that fateful day in August 2014.

“Many of them lived in, owned properties in, and/or had family members living in the areas that came under Isis attack on or around 3 August 2014.

“Others were in the United States during Isis’ attack on Sinjar and had to watch in horror as Isis attacked their families, ransacked their homes, and destroyed their community. Some had to work multiple jobs or drop out of school to send money to their relatives who had fled with nothing but the clothes on their backs.”

A Washington-based international law specialist explained to me that in this new suit, “The victims were American citizens and US banks were used to make the payments. That should be sufficient for US courts to have jurisdiction. Iraqi courts might also have jurisdiction if Iraq has a comparable law. [But] better to sue in the US. The [larger] point is that several different countries can have jurisdiction over the same act.”

Corporate responsibility in conflict zones

In exploring the impact of the 2022 decision, the US Department of Justice has said, “From August 2013 through October 2014, Lafarge and LCS paid Isis and ANF, through intermediaries, the equivalent of approximately $5.92-million, consisting of fixed monthly ‘donation’ payments to Isis and ANF, payments to Isis-controlled suppliers to purchase raw materials, and variable payments based on the amount of cement LCS sold.

“Lafarge and LCS also paid the equivalent of approximately $1.11-million to the third-party intermediaries for negotiating with and making payments to Isis and ANF on Lafarge’s and LCS’ behalf.

“In addition, when LCS eventually evacuated the Jalabiyeh Cement Plant in September 2014, Isis took possession of cement that LCS had produced in furtherance of the conspiracy, and Isis sold the cement at prices that would have yielded Isis approximately $3.21-million.

“As a result of the scheme, LCS obtained approximately $70.30-million in total sales revenue from August 2013 through 2014. The gains to all participants in the conspiracy, including LCS, the intermediaries and the terrorist groups, totalled approximately $80.54-million.”

Even after any lawyer’s fees and expenses are covered, assuming the plaintiffs win, the payments to the Yazidi being sought could represent significant money for them — and, of course, to Lafarge and its cronies.

Of course, if all of the 200,000 or so Yazidis who had been brutalised by Isis (let alone those whom Isis killed) could have had their day in court, Lafarge would be facing much more severe damages claims.

But at the very least, this newly filed case represents a start in enforcing corporate responsibility and complicity over their actions in conflict zones. This could well have a bearing on claims by others — in other conflict zones — where a company has made a deal with the terrorist devil.

And, of course, success in this case won’t harm Amal Clooney’s reputation as a force to be reckoned with. DM

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World

A network of financiers

Guilty plea

‘Nothing but the clothes on their back’

Corporate responsibility in conflict zones