School bus death: Sentencing on May 11

A court of appeals in Abu Dhabi has set May 11 for issuing a sentence against the defendants in the case of a four-year-old Indian schoolgirl who paid her life because of alleged negligence by her school supervisors.

All the convicted defendants in the case, including the school bus driver and the supervising attendant, pleaded not guilty and demanded acquittal during Wednesday's hearings. Some defendants blamed the others for the girl's death.

"The judge set May 11 to issue the sentence against the defendants, who were sentenced to prison terms in February by a court of first instance," the Dubai-based Albayan Arabic language daily said.

Naziha Lal Ahmed was found dead in the school bus in October after she was left asleep for several hours, during which the vehicle was locked by the driver and the bus supervisor from Al Worood private school in the capital.

The girl was found lying on her seat in the bus at the end of the school day after she suffocated inside the locked bus on a hot day.

After marathon court sessions in late 2014 and early 2015, the judge in February sentenced the bus supervisor and the driver  to three years in prison and fined them Dh20,000 each. It also sentenced the students’ registration supervisor to a suspended three year jail term and fined her Dh20,000 while it ordered the school shut and fined it Dh50,000 for negligence and Dh100,000 for endangering a student’s life.

The court also sentenced the owner of the transport company to six months in prison and fined him Dh500,000. It also ordered the first three defendants to pay diya (blood money) to the victim’s family.

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