Two police officers in China have been jailed for dereliction of duty in connection with a deadly bus crash in 2011 in which 22 people including 20 pre-schoolers were killed.
An officer surnamed Gou, former chief of the traffic police brigade in Zhengning County in Gansu Province was given a three-year jail term by the Qingyang municipal intermediate people's court.
Meanwhile, a former deputy chief of the county traffic police brigade surnamed Wang was sentenced to three years in prison with four years of probation, state-run Xinhua news agency reported today.
Twenty-two people, including 20 pre-schoolers from a privately-run kindertargen were killed when the school bus, a nine-seater van that was illegally converted to hold 64 people, crashed head-on with a coal truck in November 2011. Another 42 children were injured.
The accident provoked sharp criticism about school bus safety in China's rural areas, where children often have to travel long distances to get to school.
Li Jungang, board chairman of the Little Doctor Kindergarten in Zhengning County in the city of Qingyang and owner of the ill-fated school bus, was sentenced to seven years in jail in July 2012.
