The five suspects being investigated over Liam Payne’s Buenos Aires hotel death are set to learn early in the new year if they will be prosecuted.
Judge Laura Bruniard has 10 days after questioning them to decide whether they should face charges as part of an ongoing criminal investigation or if the case against them should be closed.
The two hotel employees who last week became the latest of the five men now under official investigation are due to be interviewed over Zoom between December 17th and 19th in the presence of their defence lawyers.
The court interview dates of the original three suspects have not yet been made public.
By the time the judge makes her decision she is expected to have received expert reports drafted after analysis of mobile phones and computers belonging to the suspects and witnesses.
She is also hoping to have in her hands missing CCTV footage showing the moment the singer fell.
Local reports say a hard drive thought to contain the footage was handed in by restaurant bosses – but the video has yet to be located and incorporated into the case files.
At the start of the week Laura Bruniard demanded police cybercrime specialists carry out “22 examinations of different phones and computers” confiscated from witnesses and suspects during prosecutor-requested raids.
The orders followed the reactivation of the stalled investigation after a successful appeal by lead prosecutor Andres Madrea against the judge’s decision last month to rule herself out of the criminal investigation on a technicality.
The first three suspects were identified locally as Payne’s friend Rogelio “Roger” Nores, former hotel worker Ezequiel David Pereyra and Braian Nahuel Paiz. The two men subsequently told they were under formal investigation and should hire defence lawyers so they could be questioned under oath, have been named locally as chief receptionist Esteban Grassi and head of security Gilda Martin.
[ Liam Payne obituary: Pop icon who remained an enigmaOpens in new window ]
Waiter Paiz told an Argentinian TV journalist last month he had consumed marijuana and Liam had taken cocaine during their second hotel rendezvous shortly before the singer’s death. But he insisted: “I never took drugs to him or accepted any money.”
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, the businessman 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.”
Ezequiel David Pereyra has yet to make any public comment.
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