The Albany Gazette - Swiss fire fatalities not given routine autopsies: lawyers

The January 1 fire at Le Constellation, a bar in the ski resort town of Crans-Montana, in Switzerland's southwestern Wallis canton, killed 40 people, mostly teenagers, injuring 116 others.

"It is incomprehensible that autopsies were not ordered immediately," lawyer Romain Jordan, who represents several victims' families, told AFP.

"These are violent deaths, so the cause must be precisely established -- fire, smoke, trampling, something else?" he said.

"It is also important to determine how much alcohol the victims had consumed," he added.

Jean-Luc Addor, a lawyer representing the family of a teenager killed in the tragedy, told AFP: "This is not normal, because in cases of violent deaths, it should be standard procedure. It should have been done."

In Switzerland, autopsies are ordered by the public prosecutor's office.

As some funerals have already taken place, there is a risk that bodies that have not undergone a post-mortem examination would have to be exhumed.

Contacted by AFP, the Wallis public prosecutor's office declined to comment on the issue of autopsies and exhumations.

On January 4, Addor asked the Wallis cantonal public prosecutor's office to order a post-mortem examination on the teenager's remains.

With the burial scheduled for January 14, Addor again contacted the prosecutor's office on January 12, by which time the body had been released to the family.

The prosecutor's office finally ordered a post-mortem, forcing the family to return the body and postpone the funeral. The teenager was eventually buried on Friday.

- Italian concerns -

Italy's ambassador to Bern said none of the six Italian fatalities had undergone a post-mortem in Switzerland, the Neue Zurcher Zeitung newspaper reported Friday.

In Italy, lawyer Alessandro Vaccaro, who represents the family of one of the victims, told AFP on Friday that "the Rome public prosecutor's office has requested that the bodies be made available so that autopsies can be performed".

Prosecutors in Wallis believe the fire started when champagne bottles with sparklers attached were raised too close to sound insulation foam on the ceiling in the bar's basement section.

But the investigation still needs to clarify several issues, such as whether the foam met safety standards, the functioning of emergency exits and whether there were fire extinguishers.

According to an Italian police report based on a January 4 visit to Crans-Montana by two of their forensic pathologists, of the 40 bodies, three were found outside.

Thirty-seven were found in the basement, with 34 of them "piled up at the bottom of the staircase" leading from the basement to the ground floor level of the bar".

The wooden handrail had been pulled to the ground "by the weight of the bodies".

The report, seen by AFP, said the Swiss authorities "did not order autopsies or other forensic examinations" of the bodies of the Italian victims, and "the death certificates issued do not indicate the cause of death".

- Bail decision -

The bar's French owners, husband and wife Jacques and Jessica Moretti, are under criminal investigation, facing charges of manslaughter by negligence, bodily harm by negligence and arson by negligence.

Jacques Moretti is being held in custody for an initial period of three months.

Wallis public prosecutors have set a bail amount of 200,000 Swiss francs ($250,000), a source close to the case told AFP on Friday.

A tribunal court will take a decision on the amount, on a date yet to be fixed.

The Morettis' lawyers hope a decision will be made "as soon as possible", they told Switzerland's domestic news agency Keystone-ATS on Friday.

Jessica Moretti remains free but is subject to certain restrictions.

(B.Ramirez--TAG)