Five charged in connection with singer’s death

Five people have been charged in connection with the death of One Direction singer Liam Payne in Argentina, according to Argentine media.

The 31-year-old star died on October 16 after falling from the third floor of a hotel in Buenos Aires.

Hotel manager Gilda Martin and hotel worker Esteban Grassi as well as Roger Nores, an alleged associate of Payne’s, have been charged with murder, Argentina’s National Criminal and Correctional Prosecutor’s office said.

Brian Paiz and Ezequiel Pereyra – who allegedly worked at the hotel – have been charged with supplying drugs.

A judge has ordered two of the five defendants to be jailed, according to Argentine newspaper Infobae.

The two, whose names have not been released, will be summoned to appear in court within 24 working hours, Infobae added.

The BBC has reached out to the public prosecutor’s office for comment.

Argentine authorities have been investigating Payne’s last days at the CasaSur hotel.

It was announced earlier in November that three people were charged with his death but their names were not mentioned at that time.

Speaking to the famous US journalist TMZ after Payne’s death, Roger Nores said that he was a “best friend” of the singer and had been together the day of the star’s death.

She said Payne “seemed playful and happy” when she left him about an hour before the singer collapsed on the balcony.

After Payne’s death, police found items in his hotel room and damaged items and furniture.

Hotel staff made two calls to emergency services saying they had a guest who had taken “a lot of drugs and alcohol”, and was “destroying the whole room”, it was previously reported.

In November, the prosecutor’s office said toxicology tests showed alcohol, cocaine and antidepressants in Payne’s system.

A post-mortem examination confirmed the cause of his death as “multiple blunt force trauma” and “internal and external bleeding”, as a result of a hotel balcony collapse.

According to the prosecutor’s office, medical reports indicate that Payne may have been unconscious or unconscious.

The prosecutor’s office said that this disproved whether Payne could have done it accidentally or voluntarily, and concluded that the singer did not know what he was doing and did not understand what he was doing.

Payne became one of pop’s biggest names after appearing on The X Factor and rose to fame with boyband One Direction in the 2010s before the group went on hiatus in January 2016.

Of the singer the funeral took place in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, last month.

Former bandmates Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson, Niall Horan and Zayn Malik were among the mourners, along with Payne’s girlfriend Kate Cassidy and ex-girlfriend Cheryl, with whom he shares a son.