A senior Saudi religious leader on Friday denounced "lies" being spread about the kingdom after more than 1,350 people died in tragedies that struck this year's pilgrimage.

In his first major remarks touching on the September 24 Haj stampede, Shaikh Abdulrahman Al Sudais urged people to remember the efforts Saudi Arabia has made to take care of pilgrims, reported the Gulf Daily News, our sister publication.

"The efforts of the kingdom will not be undermined by the talk of the slanderers that only know to spread lies," Sudais said during weekly prayers at the Grand Mosque, Islam's holiest site.

The mosque was the scene of a construction crane collapse on September 11 which killed at least 108 people, many of them foreign pilgrims, just before Haj.

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