Seven healthcare professionals accused of negligence during Argentina’s football legend Maradona’s death will go on trial.
More than 100 witnesses, including members of Maradona’s family, and doctors who atended to him over the years, will take the stand over the course of the four-month trial, which starts on Tuesday in the Buenos Aires suburb of San.
The seven defendants risk getting between eight, and 25 years in jail if convicted. Maradona died on November 25, 2020 at the age of 60, while recovering from brain surgery for a blood clot, after decades of battling cocaine and alcohol addictions.
He was found dead in bed at a rented house in an exclusive Buenos Aires neighbourhood, where he was brought after being discharged from hospital two weeks after surgery. He was said to have died of a heart attack.
The night nurse said he had seen some “warning signs” but had “received orders not to wake him up”.Maradona’s death, which came in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, plunged Argentina into deep mourning.Tens of thousands of people queued to bid farewell to him, as his body lay in state in the presidential palace.
Neurosurgeon Leopoldo Luque, psychiatrist Agustina Cosachov, psychologist Carlos Diaz, medical coordinator Nancy Forlini, nursing coordinator Mariano Perroni, doctor Pedro Pablo Di Spagna, and nurse Ricardo Almiro will all stand trial next week.
Another nurse, Gisela Dahiana Madrid, asked to be tried by jury separately. Her trial is set for July. Prosecutors have accused the medical professionals of providing “reckless” and “deficient” home treatment to Maradona, alleging he was abandoned to his fate for a “prolonged, agonising period” before his death.
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A panel of 20 medical experts convened by Argentina’s public prosecutor concluded in 2021, that Maradona “would have had a better chance of survival” with adequate treatment in an appropriate medical facility.
The investigating magistrate in the case said each of the accused played a role in the events. The accused all deny any responsibility for the star’s death. Vadim Mischanchuk, lawyer for the psychiatrist Cosachov, said he was very optimistic of an acquittal given his client was in charge of Maradona’s mental, rather than physical health.
Maradona’s family claim that leaked audio, and text messages show the star’s health was in imminent danger, Mario Baudry, a lawyer for Maradona’s son Dieguito, said. He said the messages showed the medical team’s strategy was to try to ensure that Maradona’s daughters did not intervene “because if they did, they [the medical staff] would lose their money”.
Maradona is immortalised in countless murals, statues and exhibitions across Argentina, as well as in the tattoos sported by his legions of fans. He will also soon have a mausoleum on a 1,000-square-metre (11-square-foot) site in the heart of Buenos Aires.
“We want our father to be close to the love of the people,” his daughter Dalma Maradona said in a video presentation of the site, which is expected to receive up to a million visitors a year and will be free of charge for Argentines.
