While awaiting the Court’s decision on whether or not to confirm the prison sentence for Jacques Moretti and the house arrest that the Prosecutor’s Office requested for his wife Jessica, it emerges that in the past two investigations had been opened in the Canton of Valais into the owners of Le Constellation, the club in Crans-Montana where forty people died and 116 were injured on New Year’s Eve. The decision for both, accused of negligent homicide, injury and fire, is expected to arrive on Monday. Day on which the Italian ambassador Gian Lorenzo Cornato will go to the prosecutor’s office in Sion.
The confession about the closed door and the absence of escape routes
When he was interviewed as a person informed of the facts, therefore before the interrogation at the end of which he was arrested, Moretti admitted that the security door was closed. Indeed, he said that when, alerted to the fire, he arrived at Le Constellation, he found the door locked from the inside with a padlock, unlike usual. But in the 350 pages of the prosecutor’s file there are also testimonies from those who were present, at least a dozen people who were mainly in the basement: they all agreed on reporting the lack of escape routes.
Testimonies from survivors and employees
Among the witnesses, a former employee who had stopped to say hello to a waitress friend, who died, and who was asked by the owner to lend a hand: «Are you asking me if there were safety devices visible in case of fire in the bar? I answer in the negative” he reported. A seventeen-year-old, who occupied a €320 table on the ground floor and went downstairs for five minutes, said he was “surprised by the lack of emergency exits”.
Hypotheses on the causes: flares and insulating materials
When questioned on Friday, Moretti did not rule out that the fire was caused by flares used on champagne bottles on New Year’s Eve but he is convinced that “there is also something else”. “We’ve been using them for ten years and have never had any problems,” he said. «Systematically, when we serve a bottle in the dining room – confirmed his wife – we add a sparkling candle». Moretti also admitted that he had bought the insulating covering himself in a DIY store and had installed it during the renovation works in 2015, when they purchased the place.
Judicial precedents: Covid funds and irregularities at work
Since then the authorities have intervened twice. In 2020, a criminal investigation was opened into 75,500 euros of funds obtained as a Covid loan, partly used to purchase a Maserati; the investigation ended with no proceeding as the car was registered to the company. In 2022, however, the labor inspectorate intervened following reports from French employees of irregularities relating to working hours, breaks not respected and unpaid night work.
The issue of licensing and the criminal past in France
Another question concerns the precedents of Moretti, convicted in 2008 in France for aggravated induction into prostitution. Although Valais law prohibits those convicted of dangerous crimes from managing premises, the Morettis were granted permits for three different premises. According to a source close to the couple, the reason lies in the fact that only the Swiss criminal record had been presented and requested to the Swiss authorities.
The flaw in fire controls in the Municipality
Meanwhile, an investigation into another fire, which occurred in 2022 in a building 400 meters from the Constellation, highlighted serious shortcomings in the surveillance system. The Lens fire prevention manager (different from the one in charge of the location of the massacre), currently under investigation, admitted that he had not carried out the necessary inspections because he was overloaded: with over a thousand checks to manage in the municipality, priority had been given exclusively to schools and hotels.