Details of Liam Payne’s final hours have been shared by a judge as the Argentinian Public Prosecutor’s Office confirmed five have been charged over the singer’s death.
Two people were charged with supplying drugs with three others charged with negligent homicide, akin to manslaughter in the UK, reports the Mirror.
It comes after the One Direction star tragically fell from his room while staying at the CasaSur Palermo hotel on October 16.
Among those charged includes the 31-year-old’s friend Roger Nores, members of staff at the CasaSur Palermo hotel, including chief receptionist Esteban Grassi and head of security Gilda Martin. Grassi and Martin were charged with negligent homicide. Waiter Braian Nahuel Paiz, 24, and hotel employee Ezequiel David Pereyra, 21, have been accused of selling Liam drugs.
Supplying drugs carries a maximum of 15 years in prison, while negligent homicide carries a sentence of one to five years in Argentina.
The judge and public prosecutor have issued a statement sharing details detailing Liam’s final moments, with his death being branded as “forseeable”.
Liam had been “demanding” drugs and alcohol during his stay at the hotel and was left “unable to stand” on October 16 following his “consumption of various substances”, according to court documents.
It was also claimed that the singer was “dragged” to his room by the receptionist and two others and that the manager had allowed this to happen “at least by omission”.
The judge went on to suggest that considering Liam’s access to the balcony in the room and his “altered consciousness” that the “proper thing to do was to leave him in a safe place and with company until a doctor arrived”.
Liam’s friend, Nores, was also accused of leaving the singer unoccupied in the hotel in a “state of vulnerability” despite being aware of Liam’s past addiction issues and that Nores could “not trust that the rest of the hotel staff would act appropriately”.
The One Direction star sadly died after he fell from a third-floor balcony of his hotel room in the Argentine capital Buenos Aires. On November 7, a report from the National Criminal and Correctional Prosecutor’s Office determined that traces of “alcohol, cocaine and prescription antidepressants” had been found in the star’s system. Officials also ruled out suicide, explaining that “in the state he was in, he did not know what he was doing and could not understand it”.
According to the report, the father-of-one, whose heartbreaking death has been linked to a substance-induced “psychotic episode”, “did not adopt a reflexive posture to protect himself in the fall, so that, for the moment, it can be inferred that he may have fallen in a state of semi- or total unconsciousness.”
In the new document released today, it was hypothesised that Liam had “tried to leave the room through the balcony and thus fell”.
Earlier this month it was reported that Roger Nores was refusing to answer questions from an investigating judge probing the singer’s death. He vehemently denied claims that he’d abandoned his friend before he fell from his balcony after reports of “eratic” behaviour in the hotel lobby.
Hotel workers made two 911 phone calls before Liam was found dead. A caller appearing to be the chief receptionist claimed they had a guest who’d taken “too many drugs and alcohol”, and was “trashing the entire room”, before the line cut out. In a second call to authorities, the same caller warned that the guest’s life “may be in danger”, as the room had a balcony and asked the operator to dispatch someone “urgently”.
Speaking in a TMZ documentary investigating Liam’s death and final hours that aired earlier this month, Mr Nores said his friend was ‘in good spirits and perfectly balanced’ the day he died.
In a statement prior to the documentary’s release, he said: “I never abandoned Liam, I went to his hotel three times that day and left 40 minutes before this happened. There were over 15 people at the hotel lobby chatting and joking with him when I left. I could have never imagined something like this would happen.”
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