A former fire safety official in the Swiss ski resort of Crans-Montana remained silent when questioned Wednesday by prosecutors investigating a deadly New Year blaze, his lawyer said.<\/p>\n
“My client exercised his right to remain silent as he does not yet have access to the case file,” lawyer Fabien Mingard told AFP.<\/p>\n
“He will answer the public prosecutors’ questions as soon as he has access to the file.”<\/p>\n
The former head of the Crans-Montana municipality’s fire safety department has not been named by Swiss media.<\/p>\n
“The hearing lasted only 15-20 minutes because the defendant refused to cooperate after being informed of the charges,” Robert Assael, one of the lawyers for the civil parties in the case, told AFP.<\/p>\n
“I am shocked that he did not answer the questions when the victims… are only waiting for one thing: the truth,” he said.<\/p>\n
The blaze at Le Constellation, a bar in the upmarket Alpine resort, broke out in the early hours of January 1 as people celebrated the New Year.<\/p>\n
A total of 41 people — most of them teenagers — were killed and another 115 were injured.<\/p>\n
Nine people are under criminal investigation in the case.<\/p>\n
They include the bar’s French owners, husband and wife Jacques and Jessica Moretti, who face charges of manslaughter by negligence, bodily harm by negligence and arson by negligence.<\/p>\n
They have twice been questioned at length by public prosecutors and lawyers for the civil parties.<\/p>\n
Nicola Meier, a lawyer for the Morettis, said he was “surprised” the former fire safety official remained silent, while noting that “it is his right” to do so.<\/p>\n
“The Morettis… have never refused to answer a single question. They have always been fully cooperative, and that remains the case today and will continue to be,” Meier told AFP.<\/p>\n
– Patients still in hospital –<\/p>\n
Crans-Montana is in Switzerland’s southwestern Wallis canton and the hearings are taking place in the cantonal capital Sion.<\/p>\n
Jacques Moretti was due to be questioned again on Tuesday but the hearing was postponed indefinitely on medical grounds.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors believe the fire started when champagne bottles with sparklers attached were raised too close to the ceiling in the bar’s basement level, igniting the sound-insulation foam.<\/p>\n
The municipality triggered outrage on January 6 when it revealed that no annual safety check had been carried out at the bar since 2019.<\/p>\n
Crans-Montana Mayor Nicolas Feraud is due to face questioning in the coming days.<\/p>\n
More than half of the injured survivors of the blaze were Swiss, with several French and Italian nationals among the others wounded.<\/p>\n
Following the fire, seriously wounded patients were airlifted to various hospitals and specialist burns units throughout Switzerland and Europe.<\/p>\n
The Federal Office for Civil Protection told AFP that as of Wednesday, 38 patients were still in hospitals and rehabilitation clinics: 19 in Switzerland and 19 abroad.<\/p>\n
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