Three people are in custody in Argentina in connection with singer Liam Payne’s death. One is charged with abandonment, while the other two are accused of supplying and facilitating the drugs, including one who was reportedly a hotel employee.
It could be recalled that the One Direction star died on 16 October after falling from the third-floor balcony of a hotel in Buenos Aires.
One person who accompanied the singer has been charged with the abandonment of a person followed by death and the supply and facilitation of drugs, according to the National Criminal and Correctional Prosecutor’s Office.
A hotel employee and a third person have also been charged with supplying and facilitating the drugs. None of those arrested have been named.
Payne, 31, a father-of-one, was one of the most recognizable names in pop after appearing on The X Factor and rising to fame with the boyband One Direction in the 2010s.
Argentinian authorities have been investigating Payne’s final days at the CasaSur hotel.
After the singer’s death, police found substances in his hotel room and destroyed objects and furniture. Hotel staff had made two calls to emergency services saying they had a guest who had taken “too many drugs and alcohol”, and was “trashing the entire room”, it was previously reported.
On Thursday, the public prosecutor’s office said toxicology tests revealed traces of alcohol, cocaine and a prescription antidepressant in his body.
A post-mortem examination determined his cause of death as “multiple trauma” and “internal and external haemorrhage” as a result of the fall from the hotel balcony.
According to the prosecutor’s office, medical reports also suggested Payne may have fallen in a state of semi or total unconsciousness.
The prosecutor’s office say this rules out the possibility of a conscious or voluntary act by Payne, and they conclude he did not know what he was doing nor did he understand it.
Liam Payne’s body was released to his family on Wednesday, Nov. 6, to be flown back to the UK.