The decision to charge five people in Argentina in connection with One Direction star Liam Payne‘s death is ‘illegitimate, unfounded and arbitrary’, a lawyer for one of the suspects declared today.
Judge Laura Bruniard has moved ahead with prosecutions in Buenos Aires of all the suspects in the case including one of the British singer’s closest friends, ordering two men accused of drug dealing into custody.
Braian Paiz, a waiter who admitted to using drugs, including cocaine, with the singer, has been charged with supplying narcotics for payment. CasaSur employee Ezequiel Pereyra has also been charged with supplying drugs.
Rogelio ‘Roger’ Nores, who claims he left his close friend Liam at the CasaSur Palermo hotel in Buenos Aires at least 40 minutes before he fell to his death, is accused of negligent homicide, according to respected online newspaper Infobae.
Hotel managers Gilda Martín and Esteban Grassi have been charged with manslaughter. All five have been summoned to appear in court.
Mr Paiz’s lawyer Fernando Madeo has hinted that he would appeal the judge’s ruling and try to delay his client’s remand in custody, insisting he is a One Direction superfan who took drugs with Liam but never sold him any.
‘My client had drugs for personal use, they got together once and got high together. When he went to the hotel where Liam was, he already had drugs’, Mr Madeo said.
The Argentine lawyer confirmed his client met Liam when the star went to eat with friends and his girlfriend Kate Cassidy at the restaurant in the upmarket Buenos Aires neighbourhood of Puerto Madero where Braian was working at the time.
Mr Madeo said: ‘Liam went to talk to him and they started a brief dialogue.
‘They exchanged Instagrams. Braian was a lifelong One Direction fan and tried to talk to him to get to know him.
‘He wasn’t the dealer. You wouldn’t talk for so many hours in a private setting if you were’.
He said: ‘Braian was a lifelong One Direction fan and tried to talk to him to get to know him. My client had drugs for personal use, they got together once and got high together. When he went to the hotel where Liam was, he already had drugs’.
Braian has been ordered into custody.
His lawyer said: ‘Braian made a very extensive statement and gave all the facts. Among them, he stated that he met Liam on two occasions. Among several issues, which they did in a private environment, they also consumed narcotics but it is not true that he sold him drugs’.
In an interview with Argentinian online news portal Todo Noticias, the lawyer added: ‘What we said in the disclaimer is that Braian is a person who is a frequent drug user.
‘A while back, he used to use more. He had drugs in his house for his own use, he met Liam and they both used. It’s not that one took drugs to the other, they both just shared what they had.
‘They had very wide-ranging chat conversations. It seemed like the only thing that brought them together was this, but it wasn’t. They were two people who happened to meet each other.
‘In fact, Liam was the one who sought out my client’.
Pereyra, who is accused of selling Liam drugs on October 15 and 16, has yet to make any comment personally or through a defence lawyer.
The One Direction star died on October 16 after falling from a third floor balcony at the CasaSur Palermo hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He was just 31 and had a young son, Bear, with Cheryl Cole.
His death shocked the world and raised questions about how he had fallen from his balcony. His room had been smashed up.
Police launched a wide-ranging investigation into his death and previously Nores denied being a suspect.
Mr Nores, who vehemently denies abandoning the singer before he died, is not believed to be in custody but has reportedly been banned from leaving Argentina and has had around £40,000 of his assets frozen.
A 911 call the day the singer died warned that he had been acting aggressively and could have been under the influence of drugs and alcohol.
Grassi, the chief receptionist, claimed Liam called down ‘insistently’ to ask for alcohol, and to ask where he could get cocaine – allegedly insulting a member of staff who said he could not help.
Further to this, text messages purporting to have been exchanged between Liam and an escort in which he offered her $5,000 (£3,900) to ‘party’.
It came as reports suggested a psychiatrist had emailed Nores to advise it was ‘impossible’ to continue supporting Liam with his mental health – and to warn of the risks associated with mixing antidepressants and alcohol.
Alleged dealers Braian Nahuel Paiz and Ezequiel David Pereyra, a former employee at the Buenos Aires hotel, said they were ‘retaining their right to remain silent’ during a previous hearing in front of Laura Bruniard.
Following a police investigation, both defendants were charged with the crime of supplying narcotics for payment, which could lead to a sentence of up to 15 years in prison.
Braian had told an Argentine TV journalist last month he had taken marijuana and the former One Direction star snorted cocaine during a rendezvous at the CasaSur Palermo Hotel, where Payne was staying shortly before his death.
But Braian insisted in his interview with Guillermo Panizza on Telefe Noticias: ‘I never took drugs to him or accepted any money.’
Pereyra, 21, identified locally as the hotel worker suspected of delivering drugs to Liam in a Dove soap box, has made no public comment so far since it emerged he had been placed under formal investigation.
Nores told a TMZ documentary examining Payne’s death that he was ‘in good spirits and perfectly balanced’ the day he died as he refuted claims the singer was intoxicated and acting erratically shortly before his October 16 fatal fall from his third-floor hotel balcony.
The businessman, fighting accusations he abandoned his pal before his death amid claims he was Liam’s ‘de facto’ manager, has previously protested his innocence after being named locally as one of the men under investigation.
He said in a statement last month: ‘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.
‘I gave my statement to the prosecutor on October 17 as a witness and I haven’t spoken to any police officer or prosecutor ever since.
‘I wasn’t Liam’s manager. He was just my very dear friend.’
Grassi and Martin have been identified as two of the three men pictured carrying the singer back up to his room from his hotel lobby shortly before his fall.
The chief receptionist, who made an emergency 911 call moments before the 31-year-old singer died, has not made any public comment since being named as one of the suspects.
Tests have shown the singer binged on alcohol and cocaine before he died and also had traces of an antidepressant in his system.
Prosecutors also made it clear the idea that Liam had committed suicide had been ruled out and said he was in a state of ‘semi or total unconsciousness’ as he fell to his death from his hotel balcony when he ‘didn’t know what he was doing.’
They said of the hotel worker and the alleged ‘drug dealer’: ‘The second suspect is a hotel employee who must respond for two proven supplies of cocaine to Liam Payne during the time he was in the hotel.
‘The third is also a drug dealer who is being investigated on suspicion of another two clearly proven supplies of cocaine at two different times on October 14.’
The recent publication of the last photo of Liam, showing him being carried back up to his room from his hotel lobby shortly before his fall by three men said to include Mr Grassi, has led to speculation in Argentine media that the court investigation could eventually become a manslaughter probe.
Horrified tourist Bret Watson, who saw Liam fall to his death, revealed to TMZ earlier that the tragedy will forever remain ‘burned into his brain.’
‘It’s something that’s been burned into my brain and something I’m never going to forget,’ Mr Watson admitted.
It comes after Liam’s girlfriend reportedly agreed to be interviewed by Argentinian Police as they continue their investigation into the pop star’s tragic death.
Kate Cassidy was with Payne just two days before he died when he fell from the third floor of a Buenos Aires hotel on October 16.
The 25-year-old is not under investigation for any wrongdoing, instead she will provide a witness statement to provide police with an insight into Payne’s final days.
In words reported by the Daily Mirror, a source claimed that Ms Cassidy is speaking with the force because ‘she wants the right people to be brought to justice’.
The source said: ‘She’s going to help in any way she can, she wants the right people to be brought to justice, and if that takes her answering their questions, she’s going to do it.
‘Obviously, there’s no reason for her not to cooperate, she tried for a long time to help him get clean, and is still haunted by what happened. Anyone who provided drugs to Liam should be prosecuted, she says.’