Abu Dhabi school staff deny culpability in bus death case

The school administrator argued that due to 1,075 students being absent on the day in question, it would have been impossible to call the parents of every missing student in time to discover the missing girl before she died.

3 year old Nizaha Aalaa was found dead in a school bus October 7th, 2014. Courtesy family members

ABU DHABI // School staff accused of indirectly causing the death of a three-year-old girl on a school bus by not checking absence records or using licensed buses did not neglect their duties, the Misdemeanour Court heard on Sunday.

Nizaha Aalaa, a KG-1 pupil at Al Worood Academy Private School, died in October after she was locked in the bus.

Hassan Al Riyami, defence lawyer for the school administrator, L, argued that it would have been impossible for her to call the parents of all 1,075 children who were absent on the day of the incident in time to discover the missing girl before she died. L is accused of neglecting to check pupil records for absentees.

“Since the doctor who testified last hearing said the girl died around two hours after being left alone in the school bus, there is no way that L would have discovered the missing girl in two hours by calling all the parents,” the lawyer said.

“It would take 17 hours to call 1,075 parents if each phone call lasted one minute.

“Public prosecution also asked Osama Al Najjar, the legal consultant at Abu Dhabi Education Council (Adec), if there was a certain time frame that the school should contact the parents of missing children, and he said any time during the day.”

Therefore, the school had the right to contact parents at their convenience.

L said two employees were absent that day whose responsibility was to check the pupil records, and asked the court why she was a defendant in the case.

Mr Al Riyami said that despite the school principal being accused of endangering students’ lives by using unlicensed school buses, the case files show that the bus was, in fact, licensed by the traffic department of Abu Dhabi Police.

He said previously the Department of Transport (DoT) was responsible for licensing buses – but on October 19 they issued a decision to transfer licensing to the traffic department.

On June 18 last year, the principal requested a meeting with Adec officials regarding the substandard buses. On June 20, he also sent a letter to Adec asking for better buses and to increase fees for that purpose.

“As a school we are so sorry for this and we did not expect this to happen,” the principal said.

Adec instructed him to contact Abu Dhabi Police to assess the buses, which he did.

Police said they would issue a report with their findings.

Tarek Al Serkal, the defence lawyer for the owner of the bus company, said that standards for school buses, set by the DoT, were still in their first phase and there were no penalties and no inspections or auditing taking place, even after the girl’s death.

He said that no order to keep them from transferring the students had been made and that the bus was insured and the driver was licensed.

The bus supervisor and driver, both also accused, continued to request a defence lawyer from the court. The case was adjourned until February 8.