Teen to face High Court trial for Mahdia dorm fire

Close to two years after she was charged, the teenager who is accused of setting the Mahdia Secondary School dormitory on fire back in 2023, causing the death of 20 children was recently committed to stand trial in the High Court.

The decision was handed down following the completion of a preliminary inquiry on February 14 by Magistrate Sunil Scarce at the Mahdia Magistrate’s Court.

In his ruling, the magistrate found that there was sufficient evidence for the teenager to stand trial in the High Court.

The fire started shortly after 23:00 hrs on on Sunday, May 21, 2023 and continued for some three hours before it was controlled.

20 children- 19 girls and one boy- who were inside the building at the time perished.

Several others were injured.

A Presidential Commission of Inquiry (CoI), chaired by Major (ret’d) Joe Singh, was later set up to investigate the incident.

After months of hearings, the report was presented and it called into question the lapses of several individuals in the events that led up to the fire, during the conflagration and even after.

The report of the CoI concluded that the fire was act of arson but said even a fully-equipped facility would not have yielded a different result.