3 people charged in Argentina over death of One Direction singer Liam Payne

Three people have been charged in relation to One Direction singer Liam Payne’s death, an Argentine prosecutor’s office said on Thursday, after the superstar fell from his hotel balcony last month.

Payne had consumed alcohol, cocaine and a prescription antidepressant before falling to his death from a Buenos Aires hotel balcony last month, Argentine prosecutors said on Thursday. Those charged are someone who was close to Payne, a hotel employee and a suspected drug dealer, prosecutors added.

The prosecutor’s office said three people were charged with supplying Payne with drugs and one of them was also charged with abandoning a person in a vulnerable state.

“The results of the toxicological studies which have been communicated to his family revealed that, in the moments prior to his death and over a period covering at least his last 72 hours, Payne had traces of polydrug use of alcohol, cocaine and a prescription antidepressant in his body,” the prosecutors said.

Payne was found dead on October 16 after plunging from the balcony of his third-floor room at the CasaSur Hotel in the Argentinian capital.

An autopsy found he died after sustaining “multiple traumas” and “internal and external haemorrhaging” from the fall.