School fire lawsuit against five students dropped

Adnan Al-Shabrawi JEDDAH — The Penal Court dropped a lawsuit filed against five students for causing a fire in a private school. A source said a fire was set in a girls’ private school causing the death of three teachers and injury to 48 students, teachers and employees. “Investigations of the incident revealed that five students had started a fire to turn on the alarm. The situation went out of control leading to the biggest fire in a school Jeddah has ever witnessed. Two injured ladies in the incident sued the five students and called for them to be tried for unintentional murder,” said the source. The source also said the two ladies claimed they suffered from severe injuries and they demand monetary compensation. “The two ladies demanded a collective amount of SR4 million. Each lady demanded SR500,000 compensation from each of the convicted students. The court summoned the five students to court for trial but none of them showed up,” said the source. The source also said the court summoned the plaintiffs to court but they also did not show up. “The court had to then drop the lawsuit as neither the plaintiffs nor the defendants were responding to the court’s notices. The court did not receive any excuse from either sides and the lack of attendance from both sides or some from both sides had been recurrent,” said the source. The source also said the court has evaluated the submitted evidence and found the five students to be guilty of unintentional murder. “The students refused to accept the court’s decision claiming that they never intended to start a fire. The students claimed that they only wanted to turn on the fire alarm. They were lighting matches to get the alarm to go off and a fire erupted. As the students escaped the room they were screaming in panic,” said the source.