Swiss bar owners facing prison over the New Year’s Eve inferno that killed 40 people have blamed a young waitress for starting the fire and blocking an escape route, leaked police interviews reveal.
Jacques Moretti, 49, and his wife Jessica Moretti, 40, are under judicial supervision following the deadly fire at Le Constellation in Crans-Montana during January 1 celebrations.
French citizens are constantly questioned by prosecutors, and leaked interview records indicate they say: “It’s not us, it’s others,” Le Parisien reported Tuesday.
Moretti’s defense strategy during the twenty hours of questioning by three prosecutors was, in particular, to blame the waitress Cyane Panine, 24, for climbing on the shoulders of a colleague while marking two bottles of champagne with sparklers lit inside.
Cyane, who died in the fire, was wearing a promotional crash helmet and did not see the pyrotechnics illuminating the bar’s basement ceiling, which was covered in highly flammable foam.
Referring to the champagne sparkler stunt, which was filmed, Jacques Moretti told the inquiry it was “the Cyane show”.
“I didn’t forbid him from doing that,” he told prosecutors. ‘I didn’t make him pay attention to the safety instructions. We didn’t see the danger. Cyane liked doing that; “It was a show, he liked being part of the show.”
Jessica Moretti, who was at the same hearing on January 20, said: ‘Cyane liked to hand out these bottles; He did it of his own free will.
‘If I had thought there was even the slightest risk, I would have banned it. In ten years of running the business, I never thought there could be any danger.’
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