Police identify Uber driver who killed San Francisco girl (update)

Syed Muzzafar, 57, drove the car that killed 6-year-old Sophia Liu in an accident on New Year’s Eve, VentureBeat has learned.

(Update: The driver was an Uber partner, Uber announced today in an updated statement. The company has deactivated his account. Earlier, Uber had said that if the driver involved in the accident was an Uber partner, the account would be deactivated. “The driver was not providing services on the Uber system during the time of the accident,” Uber said in the updated statement. Read our updated story for more details.)

Muzzafar was arrested after the accident. San Francisco police charged the Union City, Calif., resident with vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence and failure to yield to pedestrians in a crosswalk, according to information that Officer Gordon Shyy sent in an email to VentureBeat.

The City and County of San Francisco District Attorney’s office will review the case and decide whether to file charges, Shyy said in a phone conversation with VentureBeat.

Muzzafar posted the $300,100 bail yesterday, and he will return to court on Jan. 7, a spokesperson for the San Francisco Superior Court wrote in an email to VentureBeat.