Liam Payne’s body will be given to his family, two police sources have told ABC News.
Sources said that the prosecutor’s office gave their permission to release Payne’s body to his father, Geoff Payne.
According to the British Embassy Officials in Buenos Aires, Geoff Payne has been in the Argentinian capital since Oct. 18, trying to repatriate the body of his son for burial in his native England.
Previously, sources said that the release of Payne’s body was dependent on the court’s findings in the criminal case.
The One Direction singer died on Oct. 16 after falling from the third-floor balcony of his hotel room at the hotel CasaSur in Palermo, Buenos Aires.
Emergency services were called in order to deal with a man acting erratically and perhaps under the influence, Alberto Crescenti, the director of SAME, Buenos Aires Emergency Medical Services, previously told ABC News. Payne’s body was found in the inner courtyard of the hotel where he was pronounced dead on the scene, according to Crescenti.
Since his death, a partial autopsy found that Payne had multiple substances in his system that day when he fell to his death from his hotel room.
The preliminary report released one day after his death stated that the singer died of “multiple traumas” and “internal and external bleeding.” Twenty-five injuries were reported on his body, all as a result of his fall, the autopsy revealed.
Multiple sources with direct knowledge of the investigation say CCTV footage reviewed by police appeared to show multiple drug exchanges between a dealer and a hotel employee taking place prior to Payne’s death.
Sources said police are still investigating if the hotel employee provided Payne with drugs.
Argentinian officials raided the hotel on Oct. 23 as part of the ongoing investigation into the late singer’s death.
There’s apparently CCTV footage appearing to show Payne sleeping in the hotel lobby with a bottle of whiskey in his hand, sources told ABC News.
Sources say that police never believed Payne’s death was a suicide or that it was intentional.
According to multiple sources with direct knowledge of the investigation, police also identified the presence of two female escorts at the hotel in the hours before Payne’s death.
ABC News has reached out to the hotel for comment.
