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In the midst of an endless judicial investigation, the Swiss tragedy of Crans-Montana reserves another surreal twist.
Jessica Moretti, owner of Constellation, turns from the main suspect into a victim: she could in fact fall within the requirements of Swiss law for accidents at work and benefit from a daily allowance. The reason: “loss of income caused by health damage” resulting from the New Year’s Eve fire. This is not a remote eventuality, but a concrete possibility, described in an exchange of letters between the Zurich insurance company and the prosecutor’s office of the Canton of Valais, which is investigating the fire in which 41 people died, including 6 Italians, mostly young people, and 115 were injured. The practice is being examined by the company which, in a note sent to the magistrates, requested and obtained authorization for the possible payment.
“In the paradox of this tragedy, one of the main suspects is therefore asking to be compensated precisely for the consequences of that fire, while 115 injured people and the families of the 41 victims are still waiting for truth and justice as well as compensation for the enormous damage suffered”, bitterly observes the lawyer Fabrizio Ventimiglia, lawyer for the family of Sofia Donadio, the girl who was injured in the fire on New Year’s Eve. Jessica and her husband Jacques Moretti are accused, with 15 other people, of arson, aggravated assault and manslaughter. The investigative activities, which also involve hundreds of civil parties, are still ongoing and several interrogations will take place in the coming months. The most awaited, November 2nd, is the one in which the entrepreneur spouses will compete.
In the meantime, the procedures foreseen by the international letter rogatory requested by the Rome prosecutor’s office continue, albeit slowly. Regarding the New Year’s Eve events, the Capitoline magistrates have opened a case in which the owners of the nightclub are being investigated. For now, only a letter dated 25 September has arrived from Sion in which the transmission of around twenty documents is anticipated, but among which there is no salient document. The reports of the interrogations of several suspects are missing, probably due to the opposition of the lawyers. There is not even a trace of the papers relating to the Morettis.
Jessica is still subject to the precautionary measure of the obligation to sign and the ban on expatriation and lives with her two young children in the villa in Lens, a few kilometers from Crans-Montana. Her husband has been in prison since August 11 in Sion prison, accused of beating her. He will remain there, as ordered by the Coercive Measures Court, at least until November 11th. The same court also confirmed for him the precautionary measures relating to the investigation into the Constellation, refusing the return of the bail of around 214 thousand euros which, in January, had allowed him to be released from prison. In a report from the cantonal police, responsible for monitoring compliance with the restrictions, it is reported that the woman expressed “fears”, in view of the end-of-year holidays and the anniversary of the massacre, “believing that the media will be active again on this matter” and hypothesizing “possible isolated acts by relatives of the victims”.
The anniversary of January 1st, which will be remembered with a ceremony, will certainly turn the spotlight back on the Constellation building which the Municipality of Crans-Montana now wants to cover with a wooden “palisade” “for hygienic-sanitary reasons, but above all to allow dignified contemplation”. The dozens of ‘lost’ objects found by the police among the ash bear witness to the drama that occurred in that basement. A harrowing photographic inventory now appears in the investigation papers, reported by the newspaper la Repubblica: from lipsticks to lucky charms; from a hair clip melted by fire to a tiny plastic Playmobil rhinoceros. The most poignant: a post-it, miraculously saved from the flames, with the words “take care”, be careful.