An Argentine judge upheld charges against five people in connection with the death of Liam Payneformer member of the musical group One Direction, and ordered preventive detention for two of them for having supplied him with drugs.
A court official confirmed the judge’s decision on Monday and said one of the two people ordered into pretrial detention — a form of pretrial detention — was an employee of the Buenos Aires hotel where Payne stayed until he die after falling from the balcony of his room in October.
The officer said the other person was a waiter Payne met at a restaurant. The officer, who asked not to be identified as a condition of discussing the sentence, said both face drug supply charges and must appear before a judge.
The judge also charged three other people with involuntary manslaughter, including a businessman who was with Payne in Argentina and two hotel managers. The official said they were not ordered to be remanded in custody.
In November, prosecutors filed the statement initial charges against three people, but did not reveal their names.
Payne fell from the balcony of his room on the third floor of his hotel in the upscale district of Palermo in the Argentine capital. An autopsy said she died of multiple injuries and external bleeding.
Prosecutors also said Payne’s toxicology tests showed her body had “traces of alcohol, cocaine and a prescribed antidepressant” in the moments before her death.
Payne’s autopsy proved that his injuries were caused neither by self-inflicted injury nor by the physical intervention of others. The document also said that he did not have the reflex to protect himself in the fall, which suggests that he may have been unconscious.
Argentine prosecutors also ruled out the possibility that Payne died by suicide.
One Direction was one of the most successful boy bands of recent times. He announced an indefinite hiatus in 2016 and Payne, like his former bandmates Zayn Malik, Harry Styles, Niall Horan and Louis Tomlinson, pursued a solo career.