The criminal track is clearly "privileged" by the investigators after the lightning fire which left five dead and seven injured in a Strasbourg building on the night of Wednesday to Thursday even if the police custody of the two suspects arrested shortly after was lifted.
" A second expert report favors the criminal track " in this fire, told AFP a source familiar with the matter, while the prosecution announced that the two men were released on Friday February 28 "for lack of serious evidence or sufficient concordants justifying their deferral as is ”.
The investigation, said the prosecution, will be entrusted to two investigating judges who will be seized with judicial information opened against X for " destruction " and " deliberate damage to the property of others by the effect of a fire " having " resulted in the death of 5 people ", qualifications " criminal ".
As early as Thursday evening, the Strasbourg public prosecutor's office had specified that the first observations tended to " rule out the hypothesis of a simple electrical failure " mentioned at first. " No electrical disorder (has) been highlighted at this stage " by the experts' investigations, had argued the prosecution.
The investigation, initially entrusted to the Departmental Security, now associates the Strasbourg Judicial Police " because of the complexity of the investigations to be carried out, " added the magistrate.
Three men and two women
Three men and two women died in the fire that started around 1:00 am Thursday in a 1970s building in the Strasbourg train station area, and seven others were hospitalized in " relative emergency ". According to the prosecutor, the five lifeless bodies were discovered " inside (the building) and mainly in the stairwell " by the firefighters.
The deceased are a man of 30, another in his thirties and a third of 45 years as well as a woman of 25 years and another of about 70 years, had initially indicated the director of cabinet of the prefecture of the Grand Est Region, Dominique Schuffenecker. But the prosecution had stressed that the victims were still in the process of formal identification at the Strasbourg Medico-Legal Institute.
Among the seven hospital wounded, whose lives are not in danger, is a pregnant woman.
The manager of the condominiums in this building, Yves Reutenauer, spoke on Thursday of the presence of " traffic " in the building, which essentially houses studios and two-room apartments for rent and where a video surveillance system had been installed.
The incident mobilized 48 firefighters and 23 machines. Only traces of the drama on the facade of the building in the early hours of Thursday: black streaks on the third floor, around wide open windows.
