Prosecutors in Switzerland asked a court on Friday to detain one of the owners of the ski-town bar that caught fire in a New Year’s celebration last week, killing 40 people and injuring more than 110.
The request came after investigators questioned the suspect, Jacques Moretti, and his wife and bar co-owner, Jessica Moretti, for hours. She was let go after questioning. While the couple had been placed under criminal investigation last week over suspicions that negligence played a role in the fire, they were not detained on the grounds that they were not a flight risk.
That changed on Friday, according to the lead prosecutor, Béatrice Pilloud. She said in a statement that she asked that Mr. Moretti be placed in pretrial detention based on his statements during questioning and his background. “The Public Prosecutor’s Office considered that there was a real risk of him fleeing,” she said.
Ms. Pilloud did not explicitly state that Mr. Moretti had been arrested, though several French and Swiss news outlets reported it, citing unnamed sources. In an email, a local court official said the court had not yet received Ms. Pilloud’s request to place Mr. Moretti in pretrial detention, but that under Swiss law, law enforcement officials can place defendants in provisional detention for 48 hours while the court weighs the prosecutor’s request.
Swiss investigators believe that sparklers caused the fire at the bar, Le Constellation, in the town of Crans-Montana. Witnesses and videos suggest the pyrotechnics placed on bottles of alcohol ignited foam insulation covering parts of the ceiling.
“My thoughts are constantly with the victims and the people who are struggling today,” Jessica Moretti told reporters on Friday outside the public prosecutor’s office in Sion, a town close to the ski resort where the fire broke out during the New Year’s party.
“It is an unimaginable tragedy, and never could we have imagined this happening,” she added, in tears. “It happened in our establishment, and I would like to apologize.”
The Morettis were questioned on a day of national mourning to honor the victims. During the ceremony, President Guy Parmelin of Switzerland called on the judicial system to “bring failures to light without delay or complacency and to punish them.”
“Our country is appalled by this tragedy,” he said in an address to relatives of the victims, rescue workers, Swiss officials and foreign leaders, including President Emmanuel Macron of France and President Sergio Mattarella of Italy.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy, who did not attend the gathering, told reporters in Rome that the fire was “not an accident.”
“What happened in Crans-Montana is the result of too many people not doing their job or thinking they could make easy money,” she said. “And those responsible must be identified and must be prosecuted.”
In a statement by their lawyers earlier this week, the Morettis said that they were “devastated and overcome with grief” and that they would “not attempt to shirk our responsibilities in any way.”
The local authorities have also come under pressure over their enforcement of fire safety regulations. In a news conference this week, Nicolas Féraud, the mayor of Crans-Montana, acknowledged that safety inspections are supposed to be carried out annually but had not occurred at the bar since 2019.
“It is rarely a single cause that causes a tragedy; there is always a chain of responsibility,” Romain Jordan, a lawyer for several of the victims and their families, said this week. He called for investigations into not only the Morettis but town officials as well.
Josephine de La Bruyère contributed reporting from Rome.
Ségolène Le Stradic is a reporter and researcher covering France.
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