Stardust to Crans-Montana, Le Constellation: cover-up already under way
Conflict of Interest disclaimer: the author has resided in Switzerland, he has taken the Swiss citizenship oath and, from time to time, been party to legal and contractual relationships involving parties referenced in the JuristGate reports. The nature of these relationships is often declared within the research reports although we can't rule out the possibility some relationships or influences have not been explicitly itemized within every report.
The author of these reports is Daniel Pocock, a member of Engineers Australia, Engineers Ireland and an elected representative of the Free Software Fellowship.
Mr Pocock is a citizen of Australia, Ireland and Switzerland.
Mr Pocock was granted Swiss citizenship in the Canton of Vaud, which is adjacent to the bilingual Canton of Valais where the tragedy occurred.
Valais can be thought of as the New Hampshire of Switzerland, a region where businessmen enjoy minimal regulation.
Valais is the third largest canton but it only has a population of 350,000 people. The population is relatively wealthy by European standards but on the other hand, they don't have the depth and breadth of skills that can be found in more populated cantons like Zurich and Geneva.
In Switzerland, each Canton operates with significant autonomy and the federal government has a rather insignificant role in comparison to other countries.
While standards in construction are agreed at a national level, it is the responsibility of each canton to enforce the standards in local premises.
Pocock's first blog after the fire found evidence the night club's owner had done the internal fit-out himself back in 2016:
(Translated to English) It was love at first sight! This Corsican businessman decided to open a business. Conveniently, Le Constellation, in the center of Crans, was for sale. He had to wait until June 2015 to sign the agreement. For six months, Jacques Moretti rolled up his sleeves and completely renovated the establishment. "I did almost everything myself. Look at these walls, there are 14 tons of dry-stone masonry, and the stones come from Saint-Léonard!" Since December 2015, Le Constellation has been showcasing Corsican products: cured meats, wines, beers, myrtle liqueur, and even chestnut-flavored whisky. "But mind you, I'm also keen to feature local Valais products. You have some excellent wines here; it's a pleasure to serve them to my customers." The Corsican admits he feels very much at home here. "You know, we're alike. We're both mountain people at heart. Stubborn, perhaps, but above all, very kind."
French TV channel BFMTV subsequently published statements from witnesses. The statements were repeated by Le Temps in Geneva:
The Hypothesis of a flame on a bottle
The testimony of two French women, gathered by BFMTV, is striking. The two witnesses, who were in the bar that night, recount the panic that seized the customers of Le Constellation and the stampede triggered by the fire.
They mention the use of "candles" placed in champagne bottles. One of them was reportedly held close to the ceiling. "In a few dozen seconds, the entire ceiling was on fire. Everything was made of wood," the two customers recount. They describe how a loud order had been given and a female member of the staff climbed onto a male colleague's shoulders. The fire then spread up to the ground floor of the establishment, they say. Panicked, the customers tried to escape through the exit door. "It was quite small compared to the number of people present. Someone broke a window so that people could get out," one of them adds.
The Canton of Valais shares borders with France and Italy. Shortly before the fire, the new French ambassador was presented to Switzerland in a ceremony in Valais, at the Opal Foundation, the very same location where the local authorities conducted their media briefing after the fire.
On the morning after the fire, four local Swiss officials attended the media briefing. News reports emphasized their roles: the president of the canton, the minister for security, the attorney general and the chief of police. All except the last, the police chief, are political appointments.
By coincidence, three of these four people live in immediate proximity to Crans, where the fire occurred and Lens, where the business owner has another restaurant, Le Vieux Chalet 1978. People need to ask how many times they visited these businesses personally. How well did they know the proprietor and staff?
The attorney general's husband, Francois Pilloud, operates a local winery. In a small canton like Valais, these families have a common interest in promoting the canton as a destination for tourists. The night club owner told the media that he likes to serve wines from local producers in Valais.
During the course of the rescue operation, authorities made their own videos of the police and firemen at work. In the morning, they published a two minute montage of videos emphasizing all the equipment and people mobilized to respond to the crisis.
However, the video is uncomfortable to watch. It feels like a public relations exercise was under way even before the bodies started to be removed and counted. The video showcases all the expensive equipment possessed by canton Valais but the video doesn't tell us anything about their competence for building inspections.
In July 2024, a scaffolding collapsed outside a shopping center in Lausanne, canton Vaud. People died. There were international news reports about the tragedy. Searching online today, I couldn't find any evidence that anybody ever conducted a public inquiry or published a report.
In October 2022, a massive construction crane collapsed beside the University of Lausanne (UNIL). The crane collapsed onto the concrete foundations sending a shockwave through the region. Many people who felt the shockwave feared an accident in the EPFL nuclear reactor. The authorities eventually told us that only one person died. Once again, I can find no further reports about inquiries or public reports about the accident. The accident occurred in Chavannes-près-Renens, the same commune where I was naturalized as a Swiss citizen. I was in the region on the very day of the accident.
Remember the referendum on corporate accountability (Responsible business initiative)? Canton Valais was one of the Cantons that voted No to accountability.
Look at how three of the four senior officials managing the crisis are personally domiciled in the immediate neighbourhood of the nightclub. In a canton with such a small population, it is very likely that some or all of these officials have frequented the businesses owned by Jacques Moretti.
Mathias Reynard is the president of the canton Valais. His official profile tells us that he is domiciled in Savièse, which is adjacent to Lens and Crans. He is a member of the Parti socialiste.
Stéphane Ganzer is the canton's minister for security. His official profile tells us he is domiciled in Veyras which is half way up the hill going to the Crans-Montana resort. Ganzer has twenty years experience as a fireman and this is more valuable than his job as a politician in the circumstances. He is a member of the PLR.Les Libéraux-Radicaux political party.
Frédéric Gisler is the police chief for canton Valais. A public announcement about his appointment gives us details about his career history. The report notes that he has worked as a police inspector, as a prosecutor and as a greffier. In a previous report about corruption, we demonstrated how a greffier is able to exercise the powers of a judge. A prosecutor exercising judge-like powers is a huge conflict of interest. The previous report made the remarkable revelation that Mathieu Parreaux, founder of the illegal legal insurance scheme, had worked as the greffier, similar to a judge, in the tribunal of Monthey. Coincidentally, Monthey is also in the Canton of Valais and Gisler is from Vernayaz, which is much closer to Monthey than the other individuals mentioned here.
Béatrice Pilloud is the attorney general or chief prosecutor for the canton. Her declaration of interests tells us she is a member of the PLR.Les Libéraux-Radicaux political party, that is, the same party as the canton's security minister. Is it appropriate for both of these roles to be linked politically? Her husband is Francois Pilloud. He is a co-owner of the PaP Vins winery and tourism business.
Béatrice Pilloud spent more than twenty years working as a criminal defence lawyer before she decided to work as the attorney general. Therefore, she has switched sides. Is this fair to all the clients she represented and defended over the years?
When people have all these powers and conflicts of interest, it is easy to see how they could use their powers to either cover something up, to punish whistleblowers or to designate somebody as a scapegoat and deceive the public about who is really at fault.
Over 100 survivors have suffered severe and critical injuries from burns and the inhalation of smoke. The crisis teams in three of Switzerlands biggest hospitals are fully occupied treating these unexpected casualties on a public holiday. Yet the Canton of Valais has told visitors in other ski resorts they can continue to ski as long as they don't have accidents.
The earlier blog about the subject identifies Jacques Moretti and his spouse Jessica Maric as co-proprietors/founders of the business where the tragedy occurred.
Ireland suffered a similar tragedy, the Stardust nightclub fire in 1981. Forty eight people died. Forty five years later, the families are still waiting for answers. As a citizen of both Ireland and Switzerland, it bothers me that the same lightning has struck two countries.
The JuristGate investigation found much the same phenomena. FINMA never gave any information to people who purchased the illegal legal insurance. They only published a redacted and anonymized version of their judgment six months later. The JuristGate web site has unredacted it so people can see how Switzerland covers up crime and incompetence.
It is entirely possible that people have committed suicide due to the financial and insurance crisis in Switzerland. These deaths are every bit as bad as the deaths in Le Constellation.
When people like Mr Pocock try to offer professional advice, for example, after the Debian suicide cluster, they are subject to public humiliation and threats of violence (recorded). The lawyers, politicians and small business owners are a group of kissing-cousins. Protecting the reputations and business interests of their families and friends is inextricably intertwined with covering up all the people who failed to prevent this disaster.
Look at the mayor of Basel, Diana von Bidder-Senn. They tell us that she has a PhD in cybersecurity from ETH Zurich but she didn't realize that her own husband was under the influence of social engineering. Can there be any more extreme example of social engineering than a victim who dies by suicide? IBM's annual Cost of a Data Breach report regularly concludes that social engineering is the number one risk for their clients.
JuristGate reports have been published in the hope that Swiss authorities can raise their standards in relation to both cybersecurity and fire safety.
Please see the rest of the JuristGate reports.
Conflict of Interest disclaimer: the author has resided in Switzerland, he has taken the Swiss citizenship oath and, from time to time, been party to legal and contractual relationships involving parties referenced in the JuristGate reports. The nature of these relationships is often declared within the research reports although we can't rule out the possibility some relationships or influences have not been explicitly itemized within every report.