Binladin Group cleared of responsibility for fatal crane crash at Grand Mosque
A Saudi Arabian court cleared the Binladin Group of responsibility for the 2015 crane collapse in Makkah that killed more than 100 people.
At least 107 people were killed and about 400 injured on September 11, 2015, when the crane toppled over near the Grand Mosque in stormy weather, days before Hajj.
The Binladin Group’s defence team claimed the Saudi Arabia-based construction company could not have predicted the severe thunderstorm and violent winds that caused the crane to fall, according to the Arabic-language Asharq Al Awsat daily newspaper.
The verdict can be appealed. The construction company had been working for years on a multibillion-dollar 400,000 square-metre extension of the Grand Mosque to accommodate increasing numbers of pilgrims.
The crane that collapsed was one of several erected by the Binladin Group as part of the project.
King Salman suspended the Binladin Group from new public contracts for several months after the tragedy.
The ruling came after a Saudi appeals court in May ordered about a dozen people accused of negligence in the crane collapse to stand trial again.
The Makkah criminal court originally ruled it had no jurisdiction over allegations of “safety breaches”, the Okaz and Saudi Gazette newspapers reported. But the appeals court judges overturned that ruling by a vote of five to two.
The accused included at least one Saudi billionaire and nationals of Pakistan, the Philippines, Canada and several Arab countries, the newspapers reported.
They were charged with “negligence leading to death, damaging public property and ignoring safety guidelines”.
No details have yet been given of when hearings might resume, and reports disagree on the number of accused, which could be 13 or 14.
The Binladin Group was founded more than 80 years ago by the father of former Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.