Three people charged in connection with Liam Payne’s death

Former One Direction singer died in October after falling from a third-floor balcony of a hotel in Buenos Aires

Three people have been charged in connection with the death of One Direction singer Liam Payne.
The 31-year old died after falling from a third-floor balcony of the Casa Sur Hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentina, last month.
Payne had traces of alcohol, cocaine and a prescription antidepressant in his system when he died, authorities said in a statement.
The statement said: “The first of the accused is the person who accompanied the artist on a daily basis during his stay in the city of Buenos Aires, who is charged with the crimes of abandonment of a person followed by death – contemplated in article 106 of the Penal Code and which provides for a prison sentence of 5 to 15 years –, as perpetrator, in ideal concurrence with the supply and facilitation of narcotics (art. 5 inc. e) of Law 23.737 on Narcotics).
“The second defendant is an employee of the hotel who is charged with two proven supplies of cocaine to Liam Payne during the period he was at the hotel, and the third, also a supplier of narcotics, is charged with two other clearly proven supplies at two different times on 14 October.
“Both were charged with the offence of supplying narcotics, two acts each (art. 5 inc. e) of Law 23.737).”
The public prosecutor’s office in Argentina said: “Illicit conduct was discovered from which three people were charged with the crimes of abandonment of a person followed by death, supply and facilitation of narcotics.”
The office also said it had completed a detailed analysis of more than 800 hours of video footage from security cameras and obtained several dozen testimonies from hotel staff, family members, friends and medical professionals.
In a statement on Thursday, the office of prosecutor Andres Esteban Madrea said “exhaustive and meticulous measures were taken to clarify the circumstances” around Payne’s death on Oct 16.
Prosecutors summarised the information into a 180-page ruling which was presented last Friday to Judge Laura Bruniard, who approved the charges.
Nine raids have also been ordered on properties in Buenos Aires and the investigation continues with some of Payne’s devices still being analysed.
According to the public prosecutor’s office, a toxicology test found Liam Payne had “traces of alcohol, cocaine and a prescription antidepressant” in his body at the time of his death.
The statement added that Payne “did not adopt a reflex posture to protect himself from the fall”, suggesting that he may have fallen “in a state of semi or total unconsciousness”.
It said that would “rule out the possibility of a conscious or voluntary act” as “in the state he was in, he did not know what he was doing nor could he understand it”.
A post-mortem concluded his death was caused by “multiple trauma” and “internal and external haemorrhage”.
Prosecutors also said there was nothing to indicate any third party was involved in the death while they had also ruled out “self-harm”, according to a forensic psychiatric report.
The statement, translated into English, said: “Although other medical background information from the victim’s clinical history must still be analysed, the phenomenon of the lack of defence or self-preservation reflex in the fall, together with other relevant data from his consumption, allow us to conclude that Liam Payne was not fully conscious or was experiencing a state of noticeable decrease or loss of consciousness at the time of the fall.”
Fans from across the globe held vigils and music stars paid tribute following Payne’s death.
In a group statement, his former bandmates Niall Horan, Harry Styles, Zayn Malik and Louis Tomlinson said they were “completely devastated”, and will miss the singer “terribly”.
The singer had found fame alongside the four when Simon Cowell put them together to form One Direction on ITV talent show The X Factor in 2010.
Payne first auditioned in 2008 when he was 14, singing Frank Sinatra’s Fly Me To The Moon, with judge Cowell telling him to return to the talent show two years later.
Cowell said he was “truly devastated” in an Instagram post reacting to news of Payne’s death, adding: “Every tear I have shed is a memory of you.”
Payne’s girlfriend Kate Cassidy said in a post to social media that her heart is “shattered in ways I can’t put into words”.
Payne previously said he struggled with alcoholism at the peak of his success with One Direction, describing hitting “rock bottom” to The Diary Of A CEO podcast host Steven Bartlett.