Liam Payne case: Argentine courts indict five people for the artist's death

An Argentine court indicted five people charged in the investigation into the death of British musician Liam Payne that occurred in October, and ordered the preventive detention of two of them, the prosecutor's office said Monday, according to AFP.

"Three of the accused were indicted without remand for culpable homicide, and the other two for the crime of supply of narcotics, and they were remanded in custody," said the statement from the prosecutor in charge of the case, which identifies the five people by their initials.

In Argentina, a procesamiento is a resolution of the judge in which he considers that the accused may be responsible for the crime of which he is accused. The figure of culpable homicide is used when a person causes the death of another unintentionally, through negligence or recklessness.

"R.L.N, representative of the victim and who also accompanied Payne on this trip to the city Buenos Aires to get his U.S. visa again; the manager of the hotel, G.A.M.; and the head of reception of the hotel, E.R.G.; are the three accused as perpetrators of a 'culpable homicide,' which provides a penalty of 1 to 5 years in prison," reported the prosecution, which added that an embargo of 50 million pesos (about 48,000 dollars at the official exchange rate) was placed on them.

"The hotel employee E.D.P. and a waiter whom Payne met in the neighborhood of Puerto Madero (in Buenos Aires) and whose initials are B.N.P. were indicted for 'supplying narcotics,' which carries a sentence of 4 to 15 years in prison. Both were remanded in custody and ordered to pay five million pesos in liens", it adds.

Liam Payne, 31, former member of One Direction, died on October 16 after falling from the balcony of his third-floor room at the Hotel Casa Sur in the Palermo neighborhood.

The enormous fame of the British band One Direction began in 2010 thanks to the television talent show The X Factor. The boy-band went on an indefinite hiatus in 2016.

In recent years, Payne had spoken openly about his struggle with alcoholism.

Vulnerability and defenselessness

In the case of the representative, the statement explains that the judge in charge of the case, Laura Bruniard, understood that there is criminal responsibility for the singer's death "through the execution of actions and omissions in the prior and contemporaneous period that culminated in causing Payne to fall from the balcony" of his room.

The defendant "failed to fulfill his duties of care, assistance and aid" and abandoned him "to his fate, knowing him incapable of fending for himself, knowing that (Payne) suffered from multiple previous addictions - alcohol and cocaine - and having full knowledge of the state of intoxication, vulnerability and helplessness in which he was."

Meanwhile, the judge considered that it was also appropriate to prosecute the manager and the hotel reception manager because in the lobby they had seen that "Payne could not stand up because of the consumption of substances" and in any case they allowed him to be taken to the room.

The musician had consumed alcohol, cocaine and an antidepressants. According to the autopsy results, he died from "multiple traumas" and "internal and external bleeding."