Manslaughter, serious injuries, and arson: the Rome prosecutor's office has also opened an investigation into the Crans-Montana fire that claimed the lives of 40 people, six of them Italian, and injured 116, including 14 Italians. This move by the Roman magistrates gives the judicial proceedings surrounding the New Year's Eve massacre an international dimension, following similar legal initiatives in France and, now, Belgium. The Belgian prosecutor's office has made itself available to Swiss judicial and police authorities for any investigative measures in Belgium, including—if necessary—the interviewing of witnesses.
The Italian investigation was initiated by Rome's prosecutors, who typically have jurisdiction over incidents involving Italian citizens abroad, also based on a communication sent by the Farnesina. This communication contains the list of victims and injured in the New Year's Eve massacre who were from Italy, as verified by the consular authorities who made the identifications. Next Monday, the Italian Ambassador to Switzerland, Gian Lorenzo Cornado, will meet with the Attorney General of the Canton of Valais, Beatrice Pilloud, to review the investigation .
The possibility that the investigation could also be extended to Italy had been supported on Wednesday by Sébastien Fanti, one of the lawyers for the families involved in the tragedy, who spoke of a "residual competence" of our country, considering the significant number of compatriots involved .
Meanwhile, on Friday, the very day Switzerland will pause to remember the victims of the Constellation fire in Crans-Montana, investigating magistrates in Sion will interview Jacques Moretti and Jessica Maric , French owners of the bar that burned down at 1:30 a.m. on January 1st. This will be their first questioning as suspects in manslaughter, assault, and arson, after having already been interviewed by Valais Attorney General Béatrice Pilloud as persons with information on the facts .
There is now little doubt about the technical origin of the accident: the ceiling of the club, covered in highly flammable sound-absorbing foam, was set on fire by a small firework placed on a bottle of champagne lifted by a waitress, which in turn was raised to ceiling height by another employee of the disco bar .
But there are still many unresolved issues, particularly regarding liability and compliance with safety regulations. Tomorrow's hearing, which will also include the victims' families' lawyers, will be an opportunity for the couple, originally from Corsica but with business in Geneva and Cannes, to demonstrate the "full cooperation" they declared in a statement released in recent days. It will also be an opportunity to clarify some unconfirmed circumstances that have emerged in the last few hours, according to which the woman, present in the restaurant at the time of the fire, was filmed by surveillance cameras while leaving the premises during the emergency . It is precisely the Morettis' state of freedom that has been the focus of criticism from the families' lawyers. During tomorrow's hearing, lawyer Fanti himself expressed his hope that this will lead to "the precautionary custody of the two owners."
On the other side of the investigation, all eyes are on the responsibilities of the Municipality of Crans-Montana, which appears increasingly isolated from an institutional standpoint. The Valais government itself today made no secret of its irritation regarding the Constellation's failure to comply with inspections: "The investigation," a spokesperson for the Valais State Chancellery stated, "will have to identify any flaws in the business's inspection system," but "for its part, the Municipality has announced that it has not conducted inspections in the last five years, a circumstance that does not comply with the legislation."
