Two people had died in January 2019 in a building fire in Courchevel, in Savoie.

Arrested in March of the same year, the indicted was released following a procedural error.

It nevertheless remains under "strict" judicial control. 

The Chambéry Court of Appeal ordered the release, under judicial supervision, of the indicted in the fire of Courchevel, in Savoie, which had killed two people in 2019, following a procedural error, a- we learned from legal sources.

On January 20, 2019, in the upscale resort of Courchevel, a fire had been caused in a building belonging to a businessman from the resort and in which seasonal workers were accommodated. 

Two of them died, a 32-year-old woman and a 50-year-old man, and around 20 others were injured.

The indicted was arrested in March of the same year and, since then, he changed lawyers eight times, until the last change occurred "in October 2020", said the prosecutor of Chambéry, Pierre-Yves Michau .

This last modification would not have been communicated to all levels of the institution and, during the debate on the extension of his pre-trial detention before the liberty and detention judge, on March 19, the lawyer summoned was not the correct one.

"A dysfunction which undermines the fundamental rights of the defendant"

Another hearing date was then decided, March 26, said a judicial source.

But this time the right lawyer had not been summoned within the allotted time.

In this case, the investigative chamber of the Court of Appeal of Chambéry "is obliged to note the nullity of the deposit warrant", explained a judicial source.

The prosecutor confirmed that it was a "dysfunction which undermined the fundamental rights of the defendant". 

He is placed under "strict" judicial control

The young Algerian national, known to the police services for facts related to drug trafficking, was placed under "strict" judicial control, specifies the judicial source, with in particular the confiscation of his passport and the ban on leaving the department of Hérault where he resides.

At the time of his arrest in 2019, he was trying to leave the country for Spain.

In addition, in May 2020, the Chambéry public prosecutor's office had called for the additional indictment of the businessman and owner of the building, for "involuntary homicides and injuries by manifestly deliberate violation of an obligation of safety or prudence" , "accommodation of workers in non-compliant premises", and "non-compliance with the maintenance rules for residential buildings".

Almost a year later, no additional indictment was decided, in this criminal section, by the examining magistrate.