DUBAI // The driver of a bus that killed 13 men when it crashed into a stationary lorry has been sentenced to seven years in jail – the maximum for such an offence.
Pakistani Z K was also fined Dh30,000 at Dubai Traffic Court and ordered to pay a total of Dh2.6 million in blood money to the victims’ families.
His driver’s licence has been suspended for a year and he will be deported when his sentence is served.
He showed no reaction when told of his fate by a court translator.
“This is what we were seeking, the maximum punishment,” said head of traffic prosecution Salah Bu Farousha.
“This verdict came as a true manifestation of the law concerning the imprisonment and fine.”
The bus was travelling at 20kph above the speed limit from a labour camp in Umm Al Quwain to Jebel Ali on Emirates Road in the early hours of May 10.
Of the 27 workers on the bus, 13 died. The rest were injured, as was the driver.
Nine of the dead were Indian, aged between 25 and 35, and the other four were Bangladeshis aged 24, 32, 34 and 50.
Nine workers were severely injured and six moderately, a prosecution report said. The Pakistani driver of the lorry, M G, 45, who along with the bus driver was charged with 13 counts of manslaughter and 14 counts of injury, was acquitted.
He said he had to park his lorry on the hard shoulder of Emirates Road at 8pm the day before the accident because of several faults.
“I discovered a problem in the vehicle’s frames and called the company’s mechanic after parking it on the side of the road to avoid accidents,” the lorry driver said.
“The mechanic was to come the next morning with the parts needed to fix the vehicle, so I slept inside after placing a reflective shirt to the back of the vehicle and two fire extinguishers about 4 metres away from the back of the lorry.”
Mechanic B K, 24, told the court that the lorry’s brakes had locked. When the incident was called in, it was too late to order the parts needed to fix it.
“It was nearly 10pm by then and all the shops were closed,” the mechanic said. “I arranged with M G to buy it in the morning and come to fix the vehicle then.
“M G wouldn’t have been able to move the lorry from its location. The tyres were locked and wouldn’t move.”
The court was told that the lorry driver woke at 6am on May 10 to the sound of the collision.
“I don’t know how it happened, I was sleeping,” he told prosecutors.
The bus driver said he could not recall how he lost control of the steering wheel.
“Something happened and caused the steering to swerve to the right on its own,” he said, after denying all charges.
Experts from traffic prosecution said the bus driver was responsible for the deaths and injuries.
Mr Bu Farousha said the bus company’s insurer had shown willingness to pay the blood money, which amounted to Dh200,000 for each family.
“We are currently trying to arrange with the company a way of making the payment,” he said.
The prosecution chief said his team would study the reasons for the lorry driver’s acquittal and decide whether or not to appeal against the verdict. But he said that if the bus driver appealed, prosecutors would still aim for the maximum punishment.
According to the penal code, federal traffic law and those covering blood money, the crimes for which he was charged are punishable by up to seven years imprisonment, fines and a settlement of Dh200,000 in blood money to the heirs of each of the deceased.
salamir@thenational.ae
