Liam Payne died in the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires.Keystone
A new arrest has been announced by Argentine police in the case of the death of Liam Payne, the former member of the group One Direction, who died at 31 years old.
One of two people accused of supplying drugs to British singer Liam Payne before his death in October 2024 in a Buenos Aires hotel has been arrested, police sources told AFP on Friday.
The man, identified as Braian Paiz, is accused of delivering cocaine to Liam Payne two days before the singer fell to his death from his hotel room balcony. He is one of five people prosecuted in this case.
Paiz’s home, in Budge, Buenos Aires province, was searched by the police and the detainee was taken to court.
Prosecutors said Monday that Paiz was “accused of delivering cocaine” to Liam Payne, whom he had visited at his hotel on October 14 and that he had “accompanied him to room No 310, entering with him in the room. He stayed there for almost five hours.
He told Telefe Noticias:
“We spent the night, we got high (…) something intimate happened”
Sale established
In November, Braian Paiz denied in an interview supplying drugs to Payne, while admitting to meeting him and spending time with him in his room.
The Argentine courts established that there had been “supply of drugs for money” and on Monday ordered the pre-trial detention of two of the five people prosecuted, including Paiz.
“Three of the accused were charged without pre-trial detention for manslaughter, and the other two for the offense of supplying drugs” with pre-trial detention, the prosecution declared.
These are “RLN, agent of the victim (in Argentina) and who accompanied Payne on this trip to Buenos Aires in order to renew his American visa; the hotel manager, GAM, and the hotel reception manager, ERG”, and are liable to a sentence of one to five years in prison, according to the prosecution.
Liam Payne, 31, was found dead on October 16 following “multiple trauma” and “internal and external bleeding” after falling from the balcony of his hotel room in Buenos Aires, where he had been staying since a few days.
According to the investigation, he had consumed alcohol, cocaine and antidepressants before his death. (ats)
Former One Direction member Liam Payne dies
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