3 people arrested, charged in connection with the death of former One Direction singer

Three people have been arrested and charged in connection with the death of Liam Payne, Argentina’s National Criminal and Prosecutor’s Office announced Thursday. In a statement, officials claim the three suspects were involved in “unlawful conduct” and “were charged with felony counts of abandoning a person followed by death, delivery and facilitation of narcotics.”

Authorities determined that the former One Direction singer fell from his hotel balcony on Oct. 16 in a state of “semi or total unconsciousness.” For the first time, prosecutors said they have ruled out “self-harm of any kind” or that a third party was responsible for Payne’s fall.

In the Nov. 7 statement, prosecutors said a “detailed analysis of more than 800 hours of video footage” from security cameras helped lead them to the arrest of the three people.

A defendant who accompanied Payne “on a daily basis during his stay in the city of Buenos Aires” is charged with “felony abandonment of a person followed by death.”

Another person is a hotel employee “who will be responsible for two documented supplies of cocaine to Liam Payne” during the singer’s stay at the CasaSur Palermo Hotel. The third deferent is “a drug supplier,” the affidavit alleges, and that person is accused of selling drugs to Payne on two separate occasions on Oct. 14.

“Both were charged with the crime of delivery of narcotics, two counts each,” the statement read.

Prosecutors also revealed that toxicology tests confirmed that Payne was under the influence of drugs “in the moments before his death” and for at least three days leading up to the incident. He had traces of alcohol, cocaine and a prescription antidepressant in his system.

Authorities say Payne “was not fully conscious or experiencing a state of appreciable decline or loss of consciousness at the time of the fall.” Payne’s cause of death was from “multiple trauma” and “internal and external bleeding” as a result of his third-story fall from the balcony of his hotel room.

This is a breaking story and will be updated.