Chief Prosecutor of the Northern Governorate Hussain Al Bu Ali said that the 3rd Low Criminal Court ruled jail terms between six months and two years in the case of a student’s death on a school bus.
The driver was sentenced to two years in prison and the class teacher to one year after she failed to inform the child’s family of his absence on time, he said.
The court sentenced the school owner, the bus owner, the transportation supervisor and the monitor on the bus to six months in jail each.
Both the school the Principal and contractor, who had been in charge for two weeks only when the tragedy happened and the school contractor who was abroad, at the time of the incident, were acquitted by the court.
The Chief Prosecutor said that the defendants committed collective mistakes that directly and indirectly resulted in the death of the child through negligence and failure to comply with the administrative rules regulations.
The failures were related to not ensuring the safety of the child on the bus from home to school, not making sure he got off the bus with the other students, and leaving him inside the locked bus for more than three hours in temperatures that reached 53 degrees resulting in hyperthermia, dehydration and suffocation that led to his death.
Al Bu Ali said that the prosecution noted that the ruling was enforceable and should be carried out even if the defendants lodge an appeal.