Three charged in connection with Liam Payne’s death, self-harm ruled out

Three people were charged with “crimes of abandonment of a person followed by death, supply and facilitation of narcotics” in connection with the death of former One Direction singer Liam Payne, the Argentinian Public Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement Thursday. Liam died Oct. 16 after falling from the third-floor balcony of his hotel in Buenos Aires.

An investigation found that Payne was “not fully conscious, or was experiencing a state of noticeable decrease or loss of consciousness at the time of the fall,” causing the Prosecutor’s Office to rule out “self-harm of any kind.”

“This situation would also rule out the possibility of a conscious or voluntary act on the part of the victim, since, in the state he was in, he did not know what he was doing nor could he understand it,” the Prosecutor’s Office said.

The three people charged in connection with Liam’s death include a person who accompanied the singer on a “daily basis during his stay in the city of Buenos Aires.” This person was charged with “crimes of abandonment of a person followed by death,” a charge that has a potential sentence of 5 to 15 years in prison, the Prosecutor’s Office said.

Two other people were charged with “the crime of supplying narcotics,” two counts each. The two charged were a hotel employee who is believed to have provided Liam with cocaine while he was staying at the hotel and a drug supplier accused of providing the singer with drugs at “two different times on Oct. 14,” the Prosecutor’s Office said.

Toxicology tests showed that Liam had traces of “alcohol, cocaine and a prescription antidepressant in his body,” the Prosecutor’s Office said.