Three people charged in connection with Liam Payne’s death

Three people have been charged in connection with the death of former One Direction member Liam Payne.

The singer died aged 31 after falling from a third-floor balcony of the Casa Sur Hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentina, last month.

The public prosecutor’s office in the country said three people had been charged with “abandonment of a person followed by death” and supply and facilitation of narcotics in connection with the death of Payne.

According to a translation of the statement, prosecutors said “exhaustive and meticulous measures were taken to clarify the circumstances” around the former One Direction singer’s death.

The statement said: “Based on the evidence gathered and after analysing the various bodies of proceedings and numerous documentary annexes and the background of the case, prosecutor Andres Esteban Madrea formally charged three people, requesting their questioning and arrest in a 180-page ruling presented last Friday to Judge Bruniard.”

Prosecutors said one of the individuals was accompanying the singer on a daily basis in Argentina and stands accused of abandonment of a person followed by death, which could carry a sentence of up to 15 years.

Another was an employee at the hotel where Payne was staying. The third person allegedly supplied drugs.

Nine raids have also been ordered on properties in Buenos Aires and the investigation continues with some of Payne’s devices still being analysed.

The office also said it had completed a detailed analysis of more than 800 hours of video footage from security cameras and obtained several dozen testimonies from hotel staff, family members, friends and medical professionals.

Prosecutors said there was nothing to indicate any third party was involved in the death while they had also ruled out “self-harm”, according to a forensic psychiatric report.

The translated statement said: “Although other medical background information from the victim’s clinical history must still be analysed, the phenomenon of the lack of defence or self-preservation reflex in the fall, together with other relevant data from his consumption, allow us to conclude that Liam Payne was not fully conscious or was experiencing a state of noticeable decrease or loss of consciousness at the time of the fall.”

The musician’s body was handed over to his father Geoff Payne last weekend, according to the statement.

A post-mortem examination said Payne died from multiple injuries as well as internal and external bleeding caused by the fall.

His body was found in the hotel’s internal courtyard.

After Payne’s death, police found substances in his hotel room, and destroyed objects and furniture, according to the public prosecutor’s office.

Fans from across the globe held vigils and music stars paid tribute after he died on October 16.

In a group statement, his former bandmates Niall Horan, Harry Styles, Zayn Malik and Louis Tomlinson said they were “completely devastated”, and will miss the singer “terribly”.

Payne’s girlfriend Kate Cassidy said in a post to social media that her heart was “shattered in ways I can’t put into words”.

The singer had found fame alongside the four boys when Simon Cowell put them together to form One Direction on ITV talent show The X Factor in 2010.

Payne first auditioned in 2008 when he was 14, singing Frank Sinatra’s Fly Me To The Moon, with judge Cowell telling him to return to the talent show two years later.

The music mogul said he was “truly devastated” in an Instagram post reacting to news of Payne’s death, adding: “Every tear I have shed is a memory of you.”

Payne previously said he struggled with alcoholism at the peak of his success with One Direction, describing hitting “rock bottom” to The Diary Of A CEO podcast host Steven Bartlett.