Liam Payne asked a hotel worker for “seven grams” of "cocaine" the day he plunged from his third-floor balcony after binging on drink and drugs, it was claimed overnight.
TMZ published footage late yesterday it said showed the singer stepping out of a lift at the CasaSur Palermo Hotel as he chatted with one of the three people being investigated over his death. It identified the man Liam had a rendezvous with, who has been identified locally as the hotel worker suspected of delivering drugs to the former One Direction singer in a Dove soap box.
Argentinian news website Infobae reported overnight the interaction by a lift in the basement of the Buenos Aires hotel happened around 2pm, three hours before Liam died on October 16, appearing to confirm the authenticity of the video published by TMZ which showed a time of 14.05 local time.
And it claimed the 31-year-old asked the hotel worker for for “seven grams of the same drug the hotel worker had handed him earlier that same day”, believed to be cocaine, during the brief meeting. It added: “According to the investigation around an hour after that meeting, the ma gave Liam the drugs.”
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Buenos Aires Police/AFP via Gett)The news website said two other hotel workers who witnessed the brief conversation had given statements to investigators and confirmed the singer and their colleague had spoken. The man identified locally, who has not been officially named by prosecutors leading an ongoing probe, is seen stacking chairs in the video which has also been published in Argentina before appearing to shake hands with someone who is out of camera-shot after approaching the open lift.
The person identified as Liam, wearing a white T-shirt, appears for a split-second moments later before turning round and walking back into the elevator. The hotel worker is the only one of the three men named locally as the suspects in an ongoing prosecution probe who has not yet spoken publicly.
At the weekend Argentinian waiter Braian Nahuel Paiz, who has been identified as Liam’s alleged “dealer”, admitted to two hotel meetings with the singer before his fatal plunge and confessed to taking drugs with him. But he insisted he never supplied Liam with narcotics or accepted any money from him.
The 24-year-old said he spent the night with the former One Direction singer at the CasaSur Palermo Hotel during a second rendezvous. Braian, who appeared on Argentinian TV on Saturday, claimed that arranged meeting followed an earlier get-together preceded by an initial encounter at the restaurant in the upmarket Buenos Aires neighbourhood of Puerto Madero where he worked.
He told journalist Guillermo Panizza on Telefe Noticias of their second hotel rendezvous: “I consumed marijuana and Liam consumed cocaine, the cocaine that’s in all the photos that came out after his death. “He was separating it and cleaning it before smoking it. I didn’t say anything to him about it because he seemed normal to me. He wasn’t aggressive at all, he behaved really well with me, he was really sweet.
“He asked me if I was okay. I’ve got all the messages where we arranged that second meeting. I haven’t erased anything. We took drugs together but I never took drugs to him or accepted any money. I have messages where he’s offering me money because he was apparently used to offering money for everything but I never accepted anything.
“When I left he wanted to give me some clothes so that I had a memory of being with him but I left it behind the TV because I didn’t want to take it. It was some grey jogging bottoms and a T-shirt.”
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AFP via Getty Images)Liam’s close friend Rogelio ‘Roger’ Nores had previously protested his innocence after being named locally as one of the trio under investigation. Responding to the reports which identified him as one of the suspects linked to the drug accusations and allegations he abandoned Liam before his death, businessman Mr Nores who has been described as the singer’s manager, said in a statement: “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’ve given 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." He added: “I’m really heart-broken with this tragedy, and I've been missing my friend every day.”
Prosecutors said in a lengthy statement released last Thursday three men they did not identify by name were now being formally investigated on suspicion of abandoning a person who subsequently died and supplying and facilitating drugs.
The statement described one as the person who “routinely accompanied Liam during his stay in Buenos Aires.” Tests have shown the 31-year-old 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 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 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.”
Liam’s dad Geoff flew to Argentina two days after his son died and returned to the UK with his body just over a week ago to help finalise funeral arrangements following a second visit to the makeshift shrine set up by fans outside the singer’s hotel.
The funeral is expected to take place in Liam’s home town of Wolverhampton.
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