Crans Montana, two investigations into Moretti in the past. Leonardo Bove arrived at Niguarda from Zurich'

The manager of the Constellation bar in Crans-Montana, Jacques Moretti, reportedly admitted to investigators that the back door on the ground floor of the building, and not the emergency door in the basement, was locked from the inside on the night of the New Year's Eve fire. RTS (Swiss Radio and Television) writes this, correcting an earlier version of the news.

Jacques Moretti's admission therefore does not concern the emergency exit located in the basement of Le Constellation - the venue in the exclusive ski resort of Crans Montana that was the scene of theNew Year's Eve massacre, which cost the lives of at least 40 people, six of them Italians.

According to information cross-referenced by reporters from Rts (Swiss Radio Television), Jacques Moretti told investigators that on the night of the tragedy, he had noticed that the emergency door on the ground floor was locked from the inside. Also according to Rts, the owner of the restaurant, who arrived on the scene after the fire, claimed that he personally unlocked the door from the outside and found several lifeless bodies piled up in front of the door.

Moretti, since yesterday in pre-trial detention due to danger of absconding, also stated that he did not know why that exit had been blocked. It will now be up to the criminal investigation, conducted by four prosecutors, to determine whether he is telling the truth.

Should the prosecutor believe that Jacques and his wife Jessica Moretti - who ended up in domicile confinement with an electronic bracelet - were partly responsible for the door being closed, this could re-qualify the crimes charged against them.

Prosecutor Silvia Saracino, who has opened a file on behalf of her colleagues in Rome for the death of Emanuele Galeppini, the 16-year-old Genoese boy and golf champion who died in the massacre at Crans-Montana on New Year's Eve, will commission university professor Francesco Ventura to perform the autopsy. The assignment will be formalised on 19 January and on the same day a CT scan will be performed on the boy's body to ascertain the presence of crush injuries. The actual examination will be performed on 20 January.

The forensic examination will help to understand the cause of the young man's death, i.e. whether it was due to burns or smoke fumes or something else. From what emerges from the papers in the hands of the Roman prosecutors, who have at the moment opened an investigation against unknown persons, three boys were found outside Le Constellation nightclub, while the other 37 inside, most of them on the stairs or nearby. Possibly, Galeppini could be one of the three found in the street. On initial examination, the body showed no burns but some grazes and bruises, a sign that he may have been run over by someone in his escape. Therefore, the hypothesis is that he may have died from smoke fumes or other causes but not from the burns. It is not excluded that the Rome Public Prosecutor's Office may in the meantime enter the names of the couple who owned the bar in the register of suspects to allow their consultant to take part in the autopsies (which will be carried out not only in Genoa, but also in Rome, Milan and Bologna).

At present, the defendants must answer for negligent manslaughter, manslaughter fire and culpable personal injury. But if the prosecutors were to believe that the suspects knew that the door was closed, that this was extremely dangerous, and that they agreed to take this risk, the prosecutors could then set up the hypothesis of murder with intent.

In that case, Jacques and Jessica Moretti would risk up to twenty years imprisonment. Rts also learned of another key element in the dossier, which concerns the ceiling foam. Questioned by the investigators, Jacques Moretti stated that he had replaced the foam himself at the time. He explained that he had removed the old acoustic foam and replaced it with foam purchased in the Hornbach DIY shop. The acoustic foam is a flammable material that could have favoured the very rapid spread of flames and the development of toxic fumes that made the air unbreathable within minutes.

As already revealed by Rts,bar employees were aware of the risks associated with this foam. During New Year's Eve 2019-2020, as witnessed by some videos circulated on social networks, a waiter had in fact warned some customers of the risk of setting fire to the soundproofing of the ceiling.

This element could also lead the prosecutors in charge of the investigation to charge the defendants with murder with intent.