Three people have been arrested and charged in connection with the death of Liam Payne, Argentina’s National Prosecution Service announced Thursday. In a statement, officials allege that the three suspects engaged in “illegal conduct” and “were charged with the crimes of abandonment followed by death, provision and facilitation of narcotics.”
Authorities determined that the former One Direction singer fell from his hotel balcony on October 16 in a state of “semi- or total unconsciousness.” For the first time, the prosector’s office said they have ruled out “self-harm of any kind,” or that a third party was responsible for Payne’s fall.
In the Nov. 7 statement, the prosector’s office said a “detailed analysis of more than 800 hours of video footage” from security cameras helped them arrest the three individuals.
A defendant who accompanied Payne “daily during his stay in the city of Buenos Aires” is charged with “the crimes of abandonment of a person followed by death.”
A second person is a hotel employee “who must answer for two proven deliveries of cocaine to Liam Payne” during the singer’s stay at the CasaSur Palermo Hotel. The third suspect is “a narcotics supplier,” the affidavit alleges, and that person is accused of selling drugs to Payne twice on Oct. 14.
“Both were charged with delivery of narcotics, two counts each,” the statement said.
Prosecutors also revealed that toxicology tests confirmed Payne was under the influence of drugs “in the moments before his death” and for at least three days leading up to the incident. He had traces of alcohol, cocaine and a prescription antidepressant in his system.
Authorities say Payne “was not fully conscious or experienced a state of marked decline or loss of consciousness at the time of the fall.” Payne’s cause of death was “multiple trauma” and “internal and external hemorrhage” resulting from his fall from the third floor balcony of his hotel room.
This is a current story and will be updated.
