The CCTV from the night of the New Year’s Eve inferno in a Swiss nightclub reportedly mysteriously ‘crashed’ three minutes before the fire broke out.
This comes as the owner of Le Constellation bar in Crans-Montana, Jaques Moretti, is under investigation for negligent homicide and negligent bodily harm.
According to German newspaper Bild, detectives only have access to the footage up to 1.23am – three minutes before the fire began.
In his January 1 interrogation, Moretti said of the CCTV: ‘At that point, the system crashed. I can’t reset it.’
He reportedly showed investigators screenshots of the latest recordings, with 11 camera angles pointed at the smoking room, the DJ, the bar, and sofas where people were sitting.
Pictures and videos of the bar on social media also vanished hours after the tragedy, raising suspicions that evidence was being destroyed, Bild reported.
It recently came out that the waitress blamed for igniting the fire had previously told her parents she was made to work ‘relentlessly’ by the nightclub owners.
Cyane Panine, 24, died in the fire at Le Constellation bar in Crans-Montana after she was filmed holding two champagne bottles fitted with sparklers while she sat on a colleague’s shoulders.
The pyrotechnics are said to have set fire to foam used for soundproofing in the basement ceiling, leading to the deaths of 40 people and seeing 116 others severely burned.
Her lawyer, Sophie Haenni, told Bild that Cyane was ‘mentally and physically’ exhausted from working at the nightclub, and was on the verge of making her ‘exploitation’ public before the tragedy.
Her parents disclosed how Cyane worked both for couple’s bar, as well as their gourmet burger restaurant called Senso, opened in 2020 following Le Constellation’s success.
‘Her shift began during the day at the Senso restaurant and then continued until the early hours of the morning at Le Constellation bar,’ Haenni told Bild, leaving the 24-year-old exhausted.
She even contacted the workers’ protection service over her employment conditions, and was apparently never informed about the dangers of the foam on the ceiling or received any safety training, her lawyer claimed.
The lawyer said Cyane wasn’t even supposed to be serving tables on New Year’s Eve, but Jessica Moretti sent her down to the basement because several bottles of champagne had been ordered there.
Haenni said: ‘Jessica Moretti asked her to go down to the basement to help her colleagues, given the large number of champagne bottles ordered.
‘Cyane simply followed the instructions given, did her job, and did so in front of the manager. She was never informed of the ceiling’s danger and received no safety training.’
The casualties ‘could have been avoided’, she said, if ‘safety standards (particularly regarding materials) had been followed and the required inspections carried out’.
She added: ‘Cyane is undoubtedly a victim.’
Moments before the inferno, Cyane was filmed wearing a crash helmet from Dom Perignon, the Champagne brand, as she was lifted onto the shoulders of Mateo Lesguer, 23, the in-house DJ.
This was ‘at the request’ of the bar manager, Jessica Moretti, 40, a witness claimed in an official report compiled by the Swiss authorities.
The Dom Perignon ‘motorcycle crash helmet’ covered Cyane’s face completely with a black visor, meaning she could hardly see anything as she carried champagne bottles plugged with sparklers.
Mateo, who was wearing a carnival mask that also hid his face, tragically died alongside Cyane in the bar.
Last week, a Swiss court imposed a travel ban on Jessica Moretti as an alternative to pre-trial detention due to what prosecutors claim is a ‘risk of flight’.
She was ordered to surrender her passport and must report to police every day, authorities say.
Jaques Moretti is being held in custody for an initial period of 90 days and prosecutors have also argued that he is a flight risk.
