AOSTA. For the death of three aspiring mountain guides swept away by an avalanche on 13 April 2023, during a ski mountaineering outing, the Aosta prosecutor’s office has requested the indictment of their instructor, Matteo Giglio, a 51-year-old Aosta Valley mountain guide. The charge is multiple manslaughter. The accident occurred near the Tsanteleina hill, in Savoy (France), a few tens of meters beyond the border, near the upper Rhemes valley (Aosta).
They were the ones who lost their lives Lorenzo Holzknecht38 years old, ski mountaineering champion born in Sondalo and raised in Bormio, Sandro Dublanc (43) ski instructor from Champorcher ed Elia Meta (36), originally from Forlì, financier of the Sagf of Entreves (Courmayeur). Based on the findings formulated by the investigating judge’s expert with evidentiary incident, the prosecutor Giovanni Roteglia hypothesized two profiles of guilt for Giglio: the failure to use backpacks with an avalanche airbag system, which are however not mandatory in ski mountaineering, and a method of descent into the gully , where the accident had occurred, which could have been more prudent.
Giglio had said that the separation had occurred as Dublanc passed over an accumulation of windy snow, which the other three had instead avoided. But according to the expert, the exact cause of the avalanche cannot be determined. The prosecutor’s office had initially formulated a request for dismissal, then the opposition of an offended party and the emergence of traces with satellite data from phones and smartwatches had given a new investigative impulse. Hence the request for an expert opinion from the investigating judge.