Argentine Judge Charges 5 People over Death of Former One Direction Star Liam Payne

AP

10:40 JST, December 31, 2024

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — An Argentine judge confirmed charges against five people in connection with the death of Liam Payne, a former member of musical group One Direction, and ordered preventive prison for two of them for having supplied him with drugs.

A judicial officer confirmed Monday the judge’s decision and said that one of the two people ordered to be put under preventive prison — a form of pre-trial detention — was an employee of the hotel in Buenos Aires where Payne stayed until he died after falling from the balcony of his room in October.

The officer said the other person was a waiter Payne met in a restaurant. The officer, who requested not to be identified as a condition to talk about the ruling, said that both face charges for supplying drugs and they need to present themselves before the judge.

The judge also charged three other people with manslaughter, including a businessman who was with Payne in Argentina and two managers of the hotel. The official said that they were not ordered to be held under preventive prison.

In November, prosecutors filed initial charges against three people, but they didn’t reveal their names.

Payne fell from his room’s balcony on the third floor of his hotel in the upscale neighborhood of Palermo in the Argentine capital. His autopsy said he died from multiple injuries and external bleeding.

Prosecutors also said that Payne’s toxicological exams showed that his body had “traces of alcohol, cocaine and a prescribed antidepressant” in the moments before his death.

Payne’s autopsy showed his injuries were caused neither by self-harm nor by physical intervention of others. The document also said that he did not have the reflex of protecting himself in the fall, which suggests he might have been unconscious.

Prosecutors in Argentina also ruled out the possibility that Payne died by suicide.

One Direction was among the most successful boy bands of recent times. It announced an indefinite hiatus in 2016 and Payne — like his former bandmates Zayn Malik, Harry Styles, Niall Horan, and Louis Tomlinson — pursued a solo career.