The criminal track is clearly "privileged" by the investigators after the lightning fire which left five dead and seven injured in a Strasbourg building during the night from Wednesday to Thursday. The custody of the two suspects arrested shortly after the fire was however lifted on Friday. "A second expertise favors the criminal track" in this fire, said a source familiar with the matter. For its part, the prosecution announced that the two men were released "for lack of sufficient serious or consistent evidence justifying their deferral in the state".
The investigation entrusted to two investigating judges
The investigation, said the prosecution, will be entrusted on Friday evening to two investigating judges who will be seized with open judicial information against X for "destruction" and "willful damage to the property of others by the effect of a fire "having" resulted in the death of 5 people ", qualifying as" criminal ".
As early as Thursday evening, the Strasbourg public prosecutor's office had specified in a press release 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.
Complex investigations
The investigation, initially entrusted to the Departmental Security, now involves the Strasbourg judicial police "because of the complexity of the investigations to be carried out," added the magistrate.
Three men and two women died in the fire that started around 1 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.