The Municipality of Crans-Montana must be placed under a commissioner in view of the huge compensation that it will have to pay for the fire on New Year's Eve" and which would amount to several hundred million euros. This is the specific request of 24 relatives of the victims of the Constellation massacre in an appeal forwarded to the government of the Canton of Valais. Edited by the lawyer Sébastien Fanti, of Sion, the request - consulted by the Ansa agency - "does not aim either to establish responsibility, nor to prejudice the criminal proceedings, in which the people under investigation benefit from the presumption of innocence", explained the lawyer.
The fears of the victims' families
Therefore there is a strong fear of a new prank among the families of the victims of the Crans-Montana massacre. And this also while waiting for the long criminal investigation to end and for the responsibilities for the New Year's Eve fire to be clarified, in which 41 people lost their lives and 115 were injured. In essence, the concern is that the millionaire compensation money will disappear. In particular, those of the Municipality, whose coffers may not be able to cope with the compensation payments. This is why 24 parents took action, asking the government of the Canton of Valais to place the finances of the ski resort under commissionership, whose administrators and officials, starting with the mayor Nicolas Féraud, are under investigation for fire, aggravated injuries and manslaughter.
The exercise of financial supervision
The same request, it was further argued, concerns "exclusively the exercise of financial and administrative supervision which does not depend on the outcome of these proceedings: the measures requested are preventive and aim to ensure that the Municipality prepares for all plausible outcomes".
The hypothesis of compensation
The financial scenarios hypothesized by the appellant families contemplated the hypothesis of a total compensation of between 323 million euros and over one billion euros. In the intermediate hypothesis, approximately 650 million euros, of which over 400 million paid by the local administration, the amount to be paid would correspond to approximately 5 years of the entire annual tax revenue and a debt for each resident equal to 41 thousand euros. The families have requested that an "official investigation" now be opened into the financial situation of the Municipality for "financial planning" in view of the payment of compensation.
The request of Chiara Costanza's parents
A similar proceeding, but aimed at Jacques Moretti, owner of the Constellation and main suspect in the investigation, with his wife Jessica, is the one that moved the Milanese lawyers Alfredo Zampogna and Vinicio Mardo, lawyers of the parents of Chiara Costanza, a 16-year-old who died in the fire. In fact, they asked the cantonal prosecutor's office to carry out checks on the banking movements of the entrepreneur of Corsican origin, given that "no assets or assets are currently subject to guarantee in view of compensation", as also reported by the "Corriere della Sera". Moretti, among other things, will be questioned on Monday for the sixth time, in the large university hall of the Sion Polytechnic, in front of over one hundred people, including investigators, lawyers and some family members. The suspect has been in prison since August, accused of beating his wife, who was allowed not to participate.
