Mother of fire disaster victims speaks to Swiss bar owners at hearing

The mother of two young women who were badly injured in the New Year's Day fire in the Swiss resort of Crans-Montana has had a private encounter with the couple who own the bar.

Leila Micheloud had said earlier she wanted to "speak privately" to Jacques and Jessica Moretti, who were attending a hearing on the fire that left 41 people dead and 115 injured.

A lawyer for the victims' families, Sébastien Fanti, said it was "an extremely intense moment and rare in its humanity", without going into what was said.

During the hearing Jacques Moretti was questioned by lawyers for the families, and his wife was due to face further questions on Thursday.

Micheloud told reporters outside the hearing in the Swiss town of Sion that her presence showed that the victims were "not just names on a list but they too had faces".

She told Swiss TV earlier of the injuries her daughters had suffered, and that "we must fight, keep on fighting every day". Farah, 20, is still in hospital with burns on over 35% of her body.

Another mother, Laetitia Brodard-Sitre, lost her 16-year-on son Arthur in the disaster and said what was important was for the truth to come out.

"There must be no more lies," she told public broadcaster SRF. "I want everyone to take responsibility; politics and parties don't matter to me."

Jacques and Jessica Moretti are under criminal investigation for involuntary manslaughter, as well as bodily harm and arson through negligence. Neither is being held in custody; Mr Moretti was released on bail last month.

Micheloud's lawyer would not say what she had discussed with the Morettis, but described the encounter as an important moment in the process.

"There will be a time to say who is responsible for what. But there is also a time for humanity, to think of all the victims, of all the wounded," Fanti told reporters outside the hearing.

The Morettis' lawyer, Yaël Hayat, had earlier described the hearings in Sion as "moments of truth", insisting that neither was trying to shirk justice for their part in the tragedy at Le Constellation bar.

She told reporters that Micheloud had shown rare courage and humanity in approaching the couple: "Maybe this moment will be, for both sides, a soothing moment in shared suffering."

The Morettis have been criticised by several former employees for safety failings that have emerged since the fire.

Sparkling candles in champagne bottles have been blamed for setting light to the ceiling, and footage has emerged showing an employee using snooker cues to push sound-proofing foam back into place on the ceiling weeks before the disaster.

Many of the victims of the new year fire were teenagers - the ages of the dead ranging from 14 to 39. It has since emerged that a service door had been locked, preventing many of those inside the bar from getting out as the fire spread at about 01:30 on New Year's Day.

A month after the disaster, the death toll rose to 41 when an 18-year-old Swiss man died of his injuries.

No fire inspection had taken place there since 2019 and earlier this week, the former security officer at Crans-Montana's town hall told a hearing that local authorities had not closed any establishment there because of fire risks until last month.

He said he had only checked La Constellation twice - in 2018 and 2019 - and the acoustic foam on the ceiling, blamed for the fast spread of the fire, was not considered part of his fire safety examination.

Three days ago, one of the survivors of the fire, Mélanie Van de Velde, posted an open letter, describing the extent of her injuries and how her body had become "a battlefield", with 40% burns.

"Every time the dressings [on my wounds] are changed, every two days, is an ordeal. Every treatment revives the pain," she said on Facebook. "My face will never be the same again... the one my daughter recognised is also gone."

She also asked where justice was when responsibility had been left "blurred, silent and diluted".