Jail sentences for 7 in 2015 Grand Mosque crane crash case

Cairo: A Saudi court has delivered final verdicts in a 2015 fall of a crane in the Grand Mosque in Makkah, convicting a construction group of negligence in the deadly incident, a local newspaper has reported.

The Makkah-based appeals court has convicted the Bin Laden Group of neglect and violation of safety rules and ordered it to pay a fine of SR20 million, added Okaz.

The court did not request the group to pay blood money to families of the victims, according to the report.

The court has also convicted seven defendants on the same charges, sentencing three of them to six months in prison and ordering them to pay SR30,000 each.

The four others, who are engineers, were handed down three months in prison and fined SR15,000 each, the report said.

Four others were acquitted in the same case while the charges were dropped against another defendant due to his death.

The rulings, issued at an online session, are final unless a contestation request is filed at the Supreme Court against the rulings, Okaz said, citing unidentified sources.

The case dates back to the run-up to the annual Hajj season in September 2015 when a crane collapsed into the mosque, leaving 108 people dead and 238 injured.

A committee formed by the Saudi authorities later excluded criminal evidence in the incident and attributed the collapse to strong winds.

In December 2020, a court in Makkah acquitted all defendants in the case, citing a report issued by the Meteorology Authority about the weather conditions on the day of the incident that did not advise vigilance and caution.

The acquittals were confirmed by the appeals court months later.

Last July, the Supreme Court revoked all rulings in the case and ordered a retrial.