Seven members of the medical team that treated Diego Maradona before his death will today go on trial for homicide in Buenos Aires.
The football legend died after suffering a heart attack at his home in the Argentinian capital, where he had been recovering from surgery to remove a blood clot on his brain, in November 2020.
The case against the healthcare professionals revolves around allegations that negligence contributed to his death.
Maradona struggled with obesity, alcoholism and drug addiction for decades. But prosecutors concluded the World Cup winner’s death could have been avoided, were it not for the negligence of his doctors.
Seven of the eight people charged in the case – including Maradona’s brain surgeon, psychiatrist and nurses – are now standing trial for culpable homicide, a crime similar to involuntary manslaughter.
They deny wrongdoing but could face up to 25 years in prison.
A three-judge court will today meet in the Buenos Aires suburb of San Isidro to hear arguments about the case.
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Maradona’s neurologist, Leopoldo Luque, who served as his personal doctor for years and performed the surgery to remove the brain blood clot, is one of the seven people on trial, as is psychiatrist Agustina Cosachov, who had prescribed Maradona’s medications.
The five other defendants are: addiction specialist Carlos Diaz, who had overseen the former footballer’s treatment for alcohol dependency; Nancy Forlini, a doctor who helped manage his home care; nursing coordinator Mariano Perroni; Ricardo Almirón, another nurse who tended to the former athlete and clinical physician Pedro Pablo Di Spagna.
A third nurse, Gisela Dahiana Madrid, has asked to be tried separately by jury at a later date.
The accusations emerged after the prosecutor’s office assembled a medical board to see if there was evidence of Maradona’s medics committing culpable homicide.
In an explosive report, published in 2021, the board accused Maradona’s team of acting in an “inappropriate, deficient and reckless manner”.
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The experts questioned why Maradona was released from hospital so soon after his surgery, with the report stating: “The home confinement did not comply with norms and protocols.”
The team failed to properly monitor Maradona and overlooked signs of a possible heart failure, the panel said. The report found the 60-year-old had not undergone any heart or lab tests in the two weeks prior to his death.
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The trial will see the prosecution present more than 120,000 messages and audio recordings from private conversations between people involved in Maradona’s care.
The defence has commissioned its forensic study to support its claim Maradona’s death “was sudden and without agony”.
The trial is expected to last until July, with at least three hearings planned each week.
