Cruelly driven

(First Edition)

ABU DHABI (Reuter) - Two Bangladeshi camel-jockeys aged eight and 10 were sentenced to two months in a correction centre for beating a six-year-old rider to death. But the judge said the nature of their work, at a camel farm in Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates, drove them to commit the act.

The boys tied the child's hands behind his back and beat him because he was 'a threat to their livelihood', police said.

Judge Ali Abdul Aziz al-Manei said yesterday: 'A camel farm has made them cruel and prone to violence . . . Sometimes they are deprived of food to keep their weight down.'