Argentine justice has charged five people in the death of Liam Paynereports the Argentinian media Infobae Sunday December 29. They are all accused of having had a link with the death of the former member of One Direction, who died of his injuries on October 16 after falling from the third floor of a hotel in Buenos Aires. Toxicological studies had detected the presence of cocaine, alcohol and antidepressants in his blood.
Two individuals were placed in pre-trial detention. The first is a 24-year-old waiter that the British musician met during his stay. The second is an employee of the hotel where the artist was staying. Both are suspected of supplying drugs to the singer. They face between 4 and 15 years in prison.
A friend of Liam Payne, the businessman Roger Noresis also in the sights of justice. The latter, who accompanied the 31-year-old musician during his trip, is charged with negligent homicide. The courts accuse him of “abandoning a person in danger”, which the main person concerned refutes. Interviewed by TMZ, he reported on the contrary having left a Liam Payne “in a good mood”: “He was talking to everyone and he was having fun. Nothing abnormal,” he reports.
“No defensive type injuries”
Two hotel managers are finally accused of manslaughter. The two employees, who had called for help shortly before the tragedy after Infobaehad been indicted at the beginning of December. The facts with which they are accused were not then specified in the documents consulted by Rolling Stone. A judge, however, considered that there were “sufficient reasons to suspect that they [avaient] participated in the incriminated act.” They are suspected of having left the singer “alone and in a vulnerable state” and that the tragedy that followed was “predictable”.
Liam Payne’s body was repatriated to London on November 6. His funeral took place 14 days later, at St Mary’s Church in Amersham, west London. A funeral which was held in complete privacy and during which Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson, Niall Horan et Zayn Malikthe former members of One Direction, bid him farewell.
Last November, the prosecution confirmed the first results of the autopsy suggesting that the injuries on the victim’s body were compatible with those of a fall and that thus, self-mutilation or “physical intervention by third parties” was excluded. The autopsy also revealed that on Payne’s hands “no ‘defensive’ injuries were found, that all injuries were vital and produced simultaneously with each other.”
Difficulty coping with fame
According to post-mortem examinations, Payne was in a state of semi-or complete unconsciousness at the time of his fatal fall. Payne “was not fully conscious or was going through a state of notable reduction or abolition of consciousness at the time of the fall”, specifies the prosecution.
The pop star had spoken publicly about her drug addiction and difficulty coping with fame from a young age. Liam Payne was catapulted to stardom in 2010 thanks to One Direction, produced by the TV show The X Factor. The group became one of the most lucrative boy bands in the world, before going on hiatus in 2016, never formalizing a separation.
