Crans-Montana, municipality: no safety inspection at Constellation from 2019 due to IT problem

The replacement of the software - it was explained - would delay the adjustments of the inspection files.

Jacques Moretti's 'adopted son' was questioned yesterday as part of the investigation into the Crans-Montana fire. Jean-Marc G. answered questions from prosecutors and lawyers for almost 12 hours, according to French broadcaster Bfmtv. In front of prosecutors and lawyers, Jean-Marc G. explained that he tried to help the victims escape.

Present in the courtroom, Jessica Moretti cried when Jean-Marc recounted the moment when they tried to save Cyane Panine. "A very emotional moment," one participant told Bfmtv. Jean-Marc recounted that Jacques Moretti had shouted to him that he had found Cyane Panine and that her 'adoptive father' had been trying to give her CPR for an hour. He himself was giving her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. This corroborates the version of events of the owner of Le Constellation.

While Jessica and Jacques Moretti, in a letter to their employees, reiterate that 'many lies have been told about them, one of the most despicable being our alleged immediate escape with the cash box under our arm'.

Yesterday was the day of Jean-Marc Gabrielli, 'like a son' to the couple under investigation with the current municipal manager for public safety Christophe Balet and his predecessor Ken Jacquemoud, in the investigation to shed light on the Crans-Montana tragedy.

The young man, who managed one of the Moretti's three premises, the Vieux Chalet, was summoned by the Sion police. Arriving early in the morning through a back door, he was heard not only about the existence or otherwise of security measures - especially on the subject of employee training - taken by the two French entrepreneurs, but also about a reconstruction of New Year's Eve, since some witnesses reported that he was on duty, sorting customers, in front of the entrance to Le Constellation. Nnight in which his fiancée, Cyane Panine, the helmeted waitress, also lost her life, indicated by the Morettis as the one who inadvertently started the fire in the basement ceiling of the club while, on the shoulders of a colleague, she was holding bottles with flares.

The 30-year-old, who has always defended the Morettis, told of arriving at the club before the flames to see his girlfriend. And then, that he 'tried to help some injured people, mostly her', Cyane.

Responding to questions, he said: 'I did not work there' and therefore knew very little about security. On the contrary, he emphasised: 'I was never trained or instructed' to deal with emergency situations.

Jessica Moretti, who participated in the questioning by the 'like a son' as a person with information on the facts, still defended herself during a break. On the subject of the letter written yesterday to her employees to assure them that they had not been 'abandoned' and that they would get their salaries, now blocked because of accounts frozen by the investigation, she told reporters: 'We are all isolated because of the investigation and I believe that this has created many misunderstandings and many lies', such as the one that 'I would have run away with the cash box. This is false. I never escaped'.

more than a week after Christophe Balet, head of public safety for the municipality of Crans-Montana, was placed on the register of suspects, the Valais public prosecutor's office only today seized his mobile phone. The minor twist occurred precisely during the interrogation of the man, which is still ongoing in Sion. The seizure - it was explained - was necessary in order to examine the data and files contained in the smartphone. Balet, who in the past also acted as fire brigade chief in a number of locations in the Valais, was found to be without a firefighting licence because - he admitted - he had failed the exam at the end of the special training course. (ANSA).