Three people charged in connection with death of One Direction star Liam Payne after he fell from hotel balcony
7 November 2024, 20:32 | Updated: 7 November 2024, 21:31
Three people have been charged in connection with the death of former One Direction star Liam Payne.
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The three people who have been charged are someone who was close to Payne, a hotel employee and a suspected drug dealer.
Argentinian prosecutors say they've been charged with "abandonment of a person followed by death" and the "supply and facilitation of narcotics".
The 31-year-old fell from a third-floor hotel balcony in Buenos Aires last month.
Emergency services had been called on the day Payne fell at the Casa Sur Hotel to a "guest who was under the influence of drugs and alcohol and who had destroyed some objects in the room".
A statement from prosecutors read: "Based on the evidence gathered and after analysing the various bodies of proceedings and numerous documentary annexes and the background of the case, prosecutor Andres Esteban Madrea formally charged three people, requesting their questioning and arrest in a 180-page ruling presented last Friday to Judge Bruniard.
The statement added: "Liam Payne was not fully conscious or was experiencing a state of noticeable decrease or loss of consciousness at the time of the fall".
The Public Prosecutor's Office in Argentina had been investigating the circumstances around Payne's death.
It is being treated as "an inconclusive death", and an initial post-mortem examination found he died instantly because of multiple traumas and "internal and external haemorrhage".
The singer-songwriter's body is due to be flown back to the UK this week.
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Tributes have continued to pour in for Payne, with his bandmates Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson paying tribute shortly after he died.
Payne had struggled with alcoholism when he was at the height of his fame, telling a 2021 edition of The Diary Of A CEO podcast host Steven Bartlett, he reached "rock bottom" before going to rehab.
In 2023, he posted a video about being in an rehab facility in Louisiana, saying he had "got more of a grip on life".
