BRIEFS: Judicial

School bus driver gets jail time

A criminal court handed down a jail sentence of 20 months in the case of Carlos Enrique Sierra Barreno, the driver of the school bus in which 12 students from the Colegio Francisco Beckman were injured following an accident in March 2007.

In the ruling, Judge Anabella Jiménez also exonerated Idrick Kubratoff Valdés, the driver of a truck that was involved in the crash, which took place in Las Cumbres.

According to Jiménez, the evidence against Barreno was "sufficient and conclusive in determining his criminal liability with respect to the accident.”

The judge found that Barreno had attempted to turn on to a road “as dangerous as the Transístmica” despite having limited visibility. As a school bus driver, Barreno should have taken every precautionary measure available to him to protect the lives of the young students traveling with him, added Jiménez.

As for Kubratoff, the driver of the truck, the judge mentioned in her conclusion that there was insufficient evidence to “prove beyond a doubt the criminal responsibility of the defendant, since witnesses in the case gave doubtful, inconsistent and contradictory testimonies.”