JEDDAH — The Bureau of Investigation and Public Prosecution (BIP) will prepare in the coming weeks a list of charges against the defendants involved in the crane crash in the Grand Mosque in Makkah last September. According to informed sources, the BIP has questioned 88 engineers and officials in the Saudi Bindladin Group which was involved in the expansion project of the Grand Mosque. It took the BIP a long time to finalize the list of charges due to the large number of people involved and the numerous reports and files that had to be considered. The sources said the questions and answers were written in 1,700 pages. According to the sources, so far as many as 21 public rights lawsuits have been filed against the Binladin Group for the people killed or injured in the incident. They said the charges against the defendants included negligence and disregard of the regulations and instructions which led to the loss of lives and property. They expected the court to issue discretionary punishments against the accused in addition to asking the operating company to pay the blood money to the families of the victims and to compensate for property damages. The BIP offices in Riyadh and Makkah thoroughly scrutinized the case files before returning them to the Jeddah office. The investigators sought the help of surveillance cameras which filmed the incident and considered the reports of the Civil Defense and the Presidency of Meteorology and Environment (PME). The defendants appointed lawyers to help them answer the questions of the investigators and to defend them before the court. Lawyer Majed Garoup said the defendants have enjoyed all the guarantees in the judiciary system including the help of lawyers during the investigations and trial.
