Wintzenheim gîte fire trial, Digi Mart USA News (Wintzenheim, Haut-Rhin, France): Three years after a fire killed ten adults with mild intellectual disabilities and a caregiver at a holiday rental in Wintzenheim, in the Haut-Rhin department of France, a court has decided to try the property’s owner for involuntary homicide and involuntary injury. Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau announced the decision on Friday, November 6, confirming information reported by Ouest-France.
According to the source, a judge issued an order on October 21 following the prosecution’s request, made September 10, for the owner to be sent to trial. The provisional schedule sets the trial for January 25 through February 10, 2027.
The owner, who is under judicial supervision, is the only person placed under formal investigation in the case.
The former mayor of Wintzenheim, a commune near Colmar, and his deputy responsible for urban planning were given the more favorable status of assisted witness. The town hall said the building, a former barn renovated a few years earlier, was neither declared nor compliant with regulations.
That non-compliance caused a strong public reaction across France.
A summary of a report by the IGAS, France’s inspectorate for social affairs, published in late September 2023, pointed to “a series of failures which, taken together, raise a systemic question about the effective consideration of safety” for vacationers with disabilities. The August 9, 2023 fire, with a death toll of 11, was the deadliest fire in France since a bar fire in Rouen in 2016.
