Abu Dhabi: Two lawyers representing three out of the five defendants in the case of four-year-old Nizaha Ala’a who died on board her Al Worood Academy Private School bus in October last year spoke at the Court of Misdemeanour today (Sunday).

The girl had reportedly died from heat exhaustion and asphyxiation after being left in the locked school bus and was found around four hours after the bus arrived at the school. She was found with head injuries on the inside of her skull at around 11.45am by the school bus driver, A.L., who is under arrest for negligence that led to murder in her case.

Both A.L. and the Filipina bus attendant, F.A., who have been imprisoned since the event, have not hired lawyers.

Meanwhile, Hassan Al Riyami, who was speaking for his two clients, the South African school principal, A.A. and his Lebanese employee L.A., said calling the parents of all 1,075 absent pupils on that day would have been impossible.

“If each phone call lasted for one minute, it would have taken L.A. 17 hours to call them all. Additionally, a legal consultant at the Abu Dhabi Education Council (Adec), Hassan Al Najjar, said that the school could inform parents of their child’s absence any time during the school day,” he said. Additionally, Al Riyami revealed that student records for the day are looked at after 9am to ensure that they have all arrived at the premises. Al Riyami also added that A.A. had contacted the Adec on several occasions in order to arrive at a solution regarding his school’s transportation.

According to the lawyer, in June, 2013, A.A. asked for a meeting with Adec to fix the situation and again sent a request to Adec to raise the school fees to hire a transport company whose buses fit the criteria set by the Department of Transport (DoT) in the same month. In August, he contacted Adec to set up a contract with Emirates Transport.

“Two weeks prior to the incident, he had even contacted the Community Police, asking them to come and inspect his vehicles and see whether they are up to standard and to then issue a report on this basis. As a principal his job should be to ensure that the children get the best education, not to take over transportation responsibilities as well, as Adec has instructed,” he said.

Speaking for the Indian transport company owner, R.A., whose vehicles were under contract with the school to transport the children, Tarek Al Sarkal told the court that his client had not hired unlicensed bus supervisors for the vehicles he had given Al Worood.

“In August last year, he had requested from the fourth defendant a list of all the school supervisors that will be on board the bus. Additionally, the contract which he had signed with A.A. on October 30, 2013 shows that the school bus driver is licensed and so are the buses. Finally, an official from the DoT told us that there are currently no inspections on school buses being conducted, including those at Al Worood, and that there are no violations being issued to those who are not abiding by the regulations as the project is still in its first phase,” Al Sarkal said.

“These inspections were not conducted even after the victim died. No warrant for my client’s arrest was issued from the Public Prosecution meaning that his arrest is invalid. Additionally, the CID officials who arrested him provided false testimonies and didn’t provide us with the sources of their information,” he added.

R.A. asked that he be released on bail because his wife is ill but the judge denied the request.

The case was adjourned until February 8.