3 charged in connection with Liam Payne's death

Prosecutors successful Argentina person charged 3 group successful relationship pinch nan decease of erstwhile One Direction singer Liam Payne, officials said connected Thursday. 

Payne, 31, died connected October 16 erstwhile he fell from a balcony of nan Casa Sur Palermo edifice successful Buenos Aires. 

One person, who authorities opportunity spent clip pinch Payne each time while he was successful Buenos Aires, is charged pinch abandonment of a personification followed by death, a complaint that carries a condemnation of 5 to 15 years successful prison, according to a news release from Argentina's National Criminal and Correctional Prosecutor's Office released Thursday. 

A image of erstwhile One Direction vocalist Liam Payne sits surrounded by flowers and candles arsenic fans stitchery extracurricular nan edifice wherever he was recovered dormant aft falling from a balcony. Natacha Pisarenko / AP

The different 2 charged are accused of supplying Payne pinch drugs, including cocaine, and person been charged pinch 2 acts each of supplying narcotics. Officials did not opportunity what nan condemnation for those charges could be. 

One of nan group charged pinch supplying narcotics is simply a edifice employee, nan prosecutor's agency said. The 3 group charged person been notified of nan charges, nan prosecutor's agency said, and person been prohibited from leaving nan country. 

None of nan suspects were identified by name.

The merchandise besides stated that Payne died from a fall, and had not jumped from nan balcony. Officials had not antecedently confirmed which type of events had happened, but nan prosecutor's agency said that Payne was apt "not afloat conscious aliases was experiencing a authorities of noticeable alteration aliases nonaccomplishment of consciousness" astatine nan clip of nan fall. 

"For nan prosecution, this business would besides norm retired nan anticipation of a conscious aliases voluntary enactment connected nan portion of nan victim," nan prosecutor's agency said. 

The investigation included 9 raids connected homes successful nan region and dozens of interviews pinch edifice staff, Payne's family and friends and experts successful nan fields of medicine, biochemistry and psychiatry, nan prosecutor's agency said. Investigators besides reviewed much than 800 hours of video footage from nan edifice and nationalist roads and conducted a forensic study of Payne's compartment telephone to reappraisal his integer footprint successful nan play starring up to his death. 

An autopsy was besides conducted. After that, Payne's assemblage was returned to his father, Geoff Payne, who had been successful Argentina since nan time aft his son's death. 

Toxicology tests conducted arsenic portion of nan autopsy showed that Payne "only had traces" of supplier usage successful his system. There were "traces" of alcohol, cocaine and a medicine antidepressant, nan prosecutor's agency said. Medical experts recovered that Payne only had injuries from his fall. 

All of nan accusation gathered by investigators was summarized into a 180-page study presented to Judge Laura Bruniard, who oversees criminal cases. Bruniard approved nan charges against nan 3 people, but nan investigation will continue, nan prosecutor's agency said, arsenic investigators proceed to effort to entree Payne's different individual devices. 

In:
• Argentina