Featured Image Credit: Getty
Topics: Diego Maradona, Argentina, Barcelona
Josh Lawless
Seven members of Diego Maradona's medical team are standing trial amid claims from prosecutors that he was "murdered" in 2020.
The former Argentina captain died of a cardiac arrest in November 2020, having had surgery for a subdural haematoma (bleed on the brain).
He passed away just two weeks after being released from hospital and a medical board who investigated Maradona's death concluded in 2021 that the medical team had acted in an "inappropriate, deficient and reckless manner."
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Maradona's family claim that the ex Barcelona star was neglected in the care of the medical professionals and they are now standing trial accused of 'culpable homicide'.
The trial involving Maradona's personal doctor Leopoldo Luque, psychiatrist Agustina Cosachov, psychologist and addiction specialist Carlos Diaz, nurse Ricardo Almiron, nursing coordinator Mariano Perroni, and doctors Pedro Di Spagna and Nancy Forlini began in Buenos Aires on Tuesday.
Gisela Madrid, another nurse, requested she be tried separately by jury at a later date and will stand trial in July.
On the first day of the trial, Prosecutor Patricio Ferrari showed an image whereby Maradona's abdomen was heavily swollen at the time he was pronounced dead.
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"Look, this is how Maradona died,’ he told the court, as per Argentine newspaper Ole, via Daily Mail.
"Whoever tells you, the judges, that they did not notice what was happening to Diego is lying to your face."
Speaking outside of the court, he continued: "The whole gang was only interested in completing records and forms to prove they had done what they weren't doing.
"The medical team treating him, as well as those responsible for this failed and reckless hospitalisation, must be held jointly responsible for the death of Diego Maradona."
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Meanwhile, Fernando Burlando, a lawyer representing Maradona's daughter, claimed he had been "murdered" and would have survived in hospital had he not been in what he called "a reckless, deficient, unprecedented home hospitalisation" and a "theater of horror".
All the medical professionals involved are being tried for what is essentially voluntary manslaughter and could be facing 25 years in prison if found guilty. They all deny wrongdoing.
Luque, Maradona's long-time doctor, performed the blood clot and was responsible for relocating him to hospital.
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A lawyer representing Luque was adamant that the death of "occurred unexpectedly, suddenly, during sleeping hours" and was "an unforeseeable" event.
Another lawyer defending psychiatrist Cosachov claimed "new evidence proves that there is no criminal responsibility".
The toxicology test did not find alcohol or illegal drugs in Maradona's system, though he did have drugs for anxiety and depression.
The case is set to lost around three to four months, with more than 100 witness testimonies poised to be heard.