The driver responsible for the infamous Saar crash, in which a father, mother and child died, has lost his final appeal at the Cassation Court.
The 29-year-old motorist got behind a wheel of a car while drunk and high, causing a tragic accident that orphaned and seriously injured the couple’s two surviving children.
In July, the Bahraini was sentenced to six years in prison for manslaughter, criminal negligence, driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs, property damage and speeding.
He had also been sentenced to three years in prison in a separate trial for recreational possession of hashish. The penalties in both Lower Criminal Court trials totalled nine years.
Yesterday, Bahrain’s highest court upheld the verdict in the trial, rejecting the motorist’s appeal – exactly 10 months after the tragedy.
The accident took place in the early hours of May 30 on Avenue 13 in Saar, when the accused’s vehicle collided head-on with a family-of-five’s car travelling in the opposite direction.
Taxi driver Ahmed Al Orrayedh, 40, and his 36-year-old wife, Fatima, were rushed to hospital, but died on the same day due to the horrendous injuries they suffered. Their youngest son, seven-year-old Abdulaziz Al Orrayedh, died of his injuries two weeks later on June 13.
The surviving children – 12-year-old Aya and nine-year-old Yousif – were seriously hurt and still recovering. Yousif suffered from fractures in the face, left shoulder, right hand, as well as internal bleeding, perforation of his intestines and a lung injury. His sister, Aya, suffered from fractures in both her hips. They now live with their uncle and grandmother in their mother’s family home in Segaiya.
The children, from left, Abdulaziz, who died in the crash, along with survivors Yousif and Aya
The accident sparked a wider national discussion about reckless driving, which led to the imposition of harsher penalties on negligent motorists. Any car crash that results in a death is now tried in the High Criminal Court instead of the Lower Criminal Court seventh circuit (traffic court), in which this very case was heard.
The GDN earlier reported that the driver faced, and was convicted of, eight charges during the manslaughter trial, after pleading not guilty.
In addition to the victims’ wrongful death and injury, he was also found guilty of not following traffic rules and instructions, improperly attempting to overtake another vehicle, and speeding – driving 30 per cent above the speed limit of the road the accident took place on.
The traffic court judge ruled to suspend the man’s driver’s licence for a year after the completion of his sentence and ordered that his vehicle be confiscated.
In a second trial, the Bahraini was found guilty of possessing hashish for personal use, and was sentenced to three years in prison and fined BD3,000 by the Lower Criminal Court’s first circuit.
In August, both sentences were upheld by the High Criminal Appeals Court. A Cassation Court verdict has not yet been issued in the drug use case.
The motorist’s attorney received widespread criticism and a public backlash for his vigorous defence of his client, telling the court that the deceased father had not ‘appropriately secured’ his children with seatbelts, suggesting he was partially responsible for their deaths.
The late Mr Al Orrayedh
His client had claimed that he had suffered a seizure when the crash happened and that a tyre on his car had ‘exploded’ at the exact moment of his epileptic fit.
The defence told the court that the driver suffered from a brain tumour and bleeding in his brain, and identified his condition as ‘cavernous haemangioma’, which was classified as benign. This condition, however, allegedly affected the 29-year-old’s ability to control his movements and meant that his client was not always in full possession of his faculties.
He also claimed that anticonvulsant medication, called carbamazepine, had been prescribed to the driver since 2014, and may have led to false positives in subsequent blood alcohol tests because it ‘impaired’ his kidney function.
Finally, he alleged that the accusations in both trials overlapped and claimed that his client was being punished twice for the same crime.
The Bahrain Bar Society later issued a statement condemning ‘vicious attacks’ against the attorney.
Meanwhile, the Public Prosecution made a strongly-worded declaration before the court, describing the defendant’s actions as ‘unforgivable’ and attributing the crash to his personal choice to consume drugs.
He called on the court to penalise the driver to the fullest extent of the law, and demanded that the judge grant no shred of leniency to him as ‘he tore a family apart’.
The Interior Ministry blamed the fatal accident on the errant driver’s ‘blatant disregard’ of road rules. “The collision was the result of extreme speeding, inattentiveness and gross neglect by the driver of a Dodge vehicle,” it said in a statement. “As he attempted to overtake another vehicle, he veered into the opposite lane and collided head-to-head with a Toyota.”
zainab@gdnmedia.bh
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