The six people currently under investigation in the case opened after the fire that destroyed two nightclubs in Murcia on October 1 and claimed 13 lives finished their account of what happened before the judge on Tuesday at a crossroads has happened. Accusations in which everyone tried to evade their responsibility and blame it on the rest of those supposedly involved. From January 23 last year until this Tuesday, three people in charge of the theater hall where the police located the outbreak of the fire appeared (behind closed doors, as it is still in the investigation phase); the DJ who organized the party that took place that evening; the owner of the cold fire machine that, according to the investigation, caused the fire and the person in charge of Fonda Milagros, where the 13 victims died.
It was the latter, Daniel R., who concluded the hearings with the respondents this Tuesday. After more than an hour of appearance, in which he answered the questions of his defense as well as those of the judge and the prosecutor, the businessman pointed directly to the management of the Teatre Theater as being responsible for the deaths: “There are things that. “can be avoided, if they had warned us just a few minutes earlier we would have saved 13 lives,” he told reporters as he left court after offering condolences to the families of the deceased. His lawyer Francisco Adán completed his words and explained that the two nightclubs, located in the same industrial hall divided into two parts by a plasterboard wall, had an emergency plan that stipulated that in the event of a fire they had an emergency plan “that the entire area and the surrounding properties” about what did not happen. This resulted in Fonda Milagros, where the 13 people died, being evacuated about four minutes later than the Teatre, a timing that, according to the lawyer, was crucial to the tragic outcome.
The criminal police had already pointed out this lack of coordination between the two nightclubs in the fire warning in one of the reports sent to the judge, in which they warned that the smoke of the fire could be seen in Fonda Milagros. The fire was now completely out of control. When the theater was empty for several minutes, the evacuation of the place began.
But Daniel R. is not the only one among the investigators who tried to deny responsibility for the fire. This was also announced by those responsible for the theater room, where the police definitely determined the source of the fire. Marco M., who testified on February 6, appears as the manager of this nightclub, but emphasized in his testimony that for five years he was only an intermediary between the owner of the industrial warehouse and the managers of the two rooms. of parties. He was the entrepreneur who rented the warehouse in 2008 and operated it until 2018. At this point he had already applied for the division into two and wanted to transfer the business. According to his lawyer Manuel Maza, with the transfer he wanted to recover the investment of more than 1 million euros that he had made to create the nightclub. However, because it was such a large amount, the venues' current managers had opted for an interim solution. Pay rent. According to his lawyer, the businessman from Fonda Milagros paid Maco M. 4,500 euros a month to run the room.
Eva M., sister of Marco M. and director of the theater on the evening of the tragedy, also tried to evade her responsibility for the fire. In a short, five-minute statement on January 30, in which she only answered questions from her lawyer, the businesswoman assured that she had all the papers in order and a contract with the DJ who organized the “We are Remember” party There was a fire in the room that night using the cold fire engine which would have caused the fire. According to her version, that evening she limited herself to charging a percentage of the drinks consumed by the partygoers and it was the DJ Carlos R., also investigated in the case, who controlled all other aspects of the celebration.
The DJ had already presented his version of events to the judge on January 23, also to try to avoid the problem and assign possible responsibilities to the fifth of the respondents, Alfonso G., owner of the Cold Fire Machine, already theatrical businessmen. Contrary to the version proposed by the person in charge of this room, the DJ insisted that he was only responsible for playing music and did not specify whether he had a contract related to the Spark machine had or not. He insisted to the media that he had “absolutely nothing to do with what happened.”
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The owner of the spark machine, Alfonso G., was the first of the respondents to testify before the judge and also the only one who answered the questions of all parties and did not accuse the rest of the respondents. During his more than two-hour appearance, he admitted that he was the only person operating the cold fire machine during the party and that he did not know all aspects of how it worked. The police investigation revealed that this device was used improperly and the appropriate safety distances were not maintained, which would have caused the fire. Alfonso G. also told the judge that he did not press charges that evening, but that he selflessly provided the pyrotechnics because he was a friend of the DJ.
The sixth person investigated is Juan I, another businessman linked to the Teatre, who exercised his right not to testify. After hearing the people identified in the trial, the judge also summoned a dozen people as “injured parties/witnesses with an offer to sue” who are scheduled to appear on February 20th and March 1st.
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