Five people charged in connection with death of Liam Payne

Five people have been charged in connection with the death of Liam Payne.

• READ MORE: Liam Payne 1993-2024: One Direction star who helped spark a pop phenomenon

The former One Direction star died on October 16, after he fell from a third-floor balcony at the CasaSur Palermo Hotel. The Argentinian prosecutor’s office later shared that the cause of death was due to multiple traumas and internal and external bleeding.

Later that month, preliminary toxicology tests revealed the musician had pink cocaine and several other substances in his system at the time of his fatal balcony fall, and fans and famous faces subsequently came forward to campaign for better safeguarding of those in the public eye.

Payne’s friend, Roger Nores, is reportedly among those who have been charged, according to local newspaper Infobae. He has been charged with negligent homicide and has been prohibited from leaving the country.

Two hotel managers, Gilda Martin and Esteban Grassi, have also been charged with manslaughter, while employees Braian Paiz and Ezequiel Pereyra have both been accused of supplying Payne drugs.

The charges come just days after Nores filed a 91-page document to support his defence to the charge of abandonment followed by death.

In the document, Nores maintained that he was not Payne’s doctor, lawyer, or representative, and claimed that when he left Payne at the hotel the day he died, he was “greeting fans” and seemed to be fine.

“I was a friend who loved him very much, who helped him selflessly in everything I could, who spent my own money to help him, and even then it was not enough,” Nores wrote. “I do not consider that I deserve the accusation that is being levelled at me.”

Nores also claimed that Payne’s drug use brought him “close to death” multiple times before his fatal fall in October.

In November, Paiz also broke his silence, admitting that he met the late One Direction 

singer twice before his death and confessed to taking drugs with him. However, he insisted that he never supplied Payne with narcotics nor accepted any money from him.