China kindergarten bus crash policemen jailed

Two police officers have been jailed for dereliction of duty over a deadly kindergarten bus crash in northwest China, a local court announced on Wednesday.

An officer surnamed Gou, former chief of the traffic police brigade in Zhengning County, Gansu Province, was given a three-year jail term in a final judgment on Tuesday, said 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, the court said in a statement.

Twenty-two people, including 20 preschoolers from a privately run kindertargen, died 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 criticism of 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.