Saudi court clears Binladin Group in deadly crane collision

A Saudi Arabian court has cleared the Binladin Group of responsibility for the 2015 collapse of a crane in Mecca, which killed more than 100 people in a Hajj accident.

The Binladen construction firm, based in Saudi, belongs to the family of the late al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

At least 107 people were killed - and around 400 injured - on September 11 2015 when a crane toppled over near the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Islam's holiest site, just days before the annual Hajj pilgrimage. 

The Binladin Group's defence team claimed the group could not have predicted the severe thunderstorm that took place and violent winds that caused the crane to collapse, according to the Arabic-language Asharq al-Awsat newspaper.

The verdict can still be appealed.

The Binladin Group was hit by a string of Saudi-issued sanctions after the crash. 

The construction firm had been working for years on a multi-billion-dollar 400,000-square-metre (4.3-million-square-feet) enlargement of the Grand Mosque to accommodate the increasing numbers of Muslim pilgrims to the site.​