Crans-Montana, 24 victim family members ask for the municipality to be placed under commissionership

"The Municipality of Crans-Montana must be placed under a commissioner's office in view of the huge compensation it will have to pay for the New Year's Eve fire" which would amount to several hundred million euros. This is the request of 24 family members of the victims of the Constellation massacre in an appeal sent to the government of the Canton of Valais.

Drafted by the lawyer Sébastien Fanti, of Sion, the request - consulted by ANSA - "does not aim either to establish responsibility, nor to prejudice the criminal proceedings, in which the persons under investigation benefit from the presumption of innocence", specifies the lawyer. It concerns "exclusively the exercise of financial and administrative supervision - he adds - 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 financial scenarios hypothesized by the appellant families take into consideration 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 of 41 thousand euros. The families are asking for an "official investigation" to be opened into the financial situation of the Municipality for "financial planning" in view of the payment of compensation.