{"id":11064,"date":"2026-04-29T18:15:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T18:15:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/11064\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T18:15:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T18:15:18","slug":"italy-says-it-has-filed-to-be-civil-party-in-probe-into-swiss-bar-fire-that-killed-41","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/11064\/","title":{"rendered":"Italy says it has filed to be civil party in probe into Swiss bar fire that killed 41"},"content":{"rendered":"

Italy’s government said on Wednesday that it had filed to be a civil party in the criminal proceedings surrounding a devastating fire at a bar in Switzerland which killed 41 people, including six Italians.<\/p>\n

The civil claim was prompted by “the substantial resources” used for “medical, psychological and logistical assistance to the Italian nationals involved,” the government said in a statement.<\/p>\n

The blaze at Le Constellation, a bar in the upmarket Alpine resort, broke out in the early hours of 1 January as people celebrated the New Year.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors believe the New Year’s Eve 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

A total of 41 people, most of them teenagers, were killed and another 115 were injured in the disaster.<\/p>\n

\"Plaques<\/p>\n

Plaques bearing international flags are placed alongside flowers and candles at the “Le Constellation” bar in Crans-Montana, 6 January, 2026 – AP Photo <\/p>\n

The bar’s owners, Jacques and Jessica Moretti, face charges in Switzerland of manslaughter by negligence, bodily harm by negligence and arson.<\/p>\n

They have twice been questioned at length by public prosecutors and lawyers for the civil parties.<\/p>\n

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has vowed justice for Italian victims while Italy has opened its own investigation into the fire even as the Swiss probe continues.<\/p>\n

The Swiss investigation has revealed that no annual safety check had been carried out at the bar since 2019.<\/p>\n

In its statement, the Italian government said that “the involvement of local authorities in the genesis of the event is considered highly probable.”<\/p>\n

That, it said, justified “the firm demand for compensation against all parties held civilly liable.”<\/p>\n

\"Italy's<\/p>\n

Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni arrives for the EU Summit in Nicosia, 24 April, 2026 – AP Photo <\/p>\n

It said Italy would continue to monitor the Swiss legal proceedings, while confirming the government’s “full and uninterrupted support” for the victims’ families.<\/p>\n

Earlier in April, Meloni issued a sharp rebuke of a Swiss hospital<\/a> for allegedly billing the families of some of the victims.<\/p>\n

“I spoke with our ambassador: the Swiss authorities have assured us that it was a mistake, and that the families will not have to pay anything,” Meloni wrote in a post on X.<\/p>\n

“But I asked the ambassador to maintain the highest level of attention to this issue, because it would be abhorrent for costs like these to fall on the victims or on Italy.”<\/p>\n

Meloni also said that one hospital in Sion had demanded \u20ac70,000 for patients hospitalised for only a few hours, which she called “an insult on top of a mockery.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Italy’s government said on Wednesday that it had filed to be a civil party in the criminal proceedings…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11065,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[8203,325,5,8205,8204,200],"class_list":["post-11064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-italy","tag-criminal-proceedings","tag-giorgia-meloni","tag-italy","tag-le-constellation","tag-swiss-investigation","tag-switzerland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11064\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}