Five have been charged with the singer’s death

Five people have been charged over the death of One Direction singer Liam Payne in Argentina, local media reported.

The 31-year-old star died on October 16 after falling from a third-floor balcony at a hotel in Buenos Aires.

Hotel manager Gilda Martin and hotel employee Esteban Grassi and Roger Nores, who was reportedly Payne’s friend, were charged with murder, Argentina’s Office of Criminal and Correctional Prosecutor said.

Brian Paiz and Ezequiel Pereyra – who reportedly both worked at the hotel – were charged with supplying drugs.

The judge ordered that two of the five suspects be held in custody, according to the Argentinian news website Infobae.

The two, whose names have not been released, have been summoned to appear in court within 24 working hours, Infobae said.

The BBC has contacted the prosecutor’s office for comment.

Argentine authorities were investigating Payne’s last days at the CasaSur hotel.

It was previously announced in November three people have been charged with his death but their names were not revealed at the time.

Speaking to the American celebrity news channel TMZ after Payne’s death, Roger Nores said he was a “best friend” of the singer and they had spent time together the day the star died.

She said Payne “seemed playful and happy” when he left her about an hour before the singer fell from the balcony.

After Payne’s death, police found items in his hotel room and damaged furniture.

Hotel staff made two calls to emergency services saying they had a guest who had taken “a lot of drugs and alcohol” and was “throwing up the entire room,” the report previously said.

In November, the prosecutor’s office said toxicology tests revealed traces of alcohol, cocaine and antidepressants in Payne’s body.

An autopsy determined the cause of his death as “multiple trauma” and “internal and external bleeding”, as a result of a fall from a hotel balcony.

According to the prosecutor’s office, medical reports also suggested that Payne may have been partially or completely unconscious.

The prosecutor’s office said that this rule out that Payne did the act knowingly or voluntarily, and concluded that the singer did not know what he was doing and had no understanding of his actions.

Payne became one of pop’s biggest names after appearing on The X Factor and rose to fame with boy band One Direction in the 2010s before the group went on an undeclared hiatus in January 2016.

For the singer the funeral was held in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, last month.

Former bandmates Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson, Niall Horan and Zayn Malik were among the mourners, along with Payne’s girlfriend Kate Cassidy and former partner Cheryl, with whom he shares a son.