Seven members of the medical team that treated Argentinian football legend Diego Maradona before his death went on trial for homicide this week in Buenos Aires.
The case revolves around allegations that negligence by the healthcare professionals contributed to the World Cup winner’s death in 2020 at the age of 60.
Maradona suffered a heart attack at his home in Buenos Aires, where he had been recovering from surgery to remove a blood clot on his brain weeks earlier.
Widely perceived as one of the sport’s greatest players, Maradona famously led Argentina to victory in the 1986 World Cup in and inspired his compatriots with a rags-to-riches story that vaulted him from poverty to international reverence.
The player had struggled with drug addiction, obesity, and alcoholism for decades, and reportedly came close to death in 2000 and 2004. But prosecutors concluded that were it not for the negligence of his doctors, his death could have been avoided.
Seven of the eight medical professionals who have been charged in the case, including his brain surgeon, psychiatrist and nurses, are now standing trial for culpable homicide, a crime roughly commensurate with involuntary manslaughter.
Medpage Today reports that all deny wrongdoing but could face up to 25 years in prison.
Specialists on the stand
Under scrutiny in the three-judge court are neurologist Leopoldo Luque, who served as Maradona’s personal doctor for years and performed the surgery that removed his brain blood clot in 2020, and who oversaw Maradona’s hospital-to-home transition after the surgery.
The swift discharge raised questions at the time, with some experts suggesting Maradona should have stayed longer in the hospital after his operation.
Also appearing is psychiatrist Agustina Cosachov, who had prescribed Maradona’s medications – and while no alcohol or illegal drugs were detected in the toxicology test performed after Maradona’s death, the report said the soccer player had psychotropic drugs for anxiety and depression in his system when he died.
The five other defendants include: Carlos Diaz, an addiction specialist who had overseen Maradona’s treatment for alcohol dependency; Nancy Forlini, a doctor who had helped manage Maradona’s home care; Mariano Perroni, a nursing co-ordinator; Ricardo Almirón, another nurse who tended to the former athlete; and Pedro Pablo Di Spagna, a clinical physician.
A third nurse has asked to be tried separately by jury at a later date.
The prosecutor’s office assembled a medical board comprising a dozen experts – including forensic doctors, cardiologists, psychiatrists, and toxicologists – to see if there was evidence of Maradona’s medics committing culpable homicide, after a 2021 report in which the board had accused his medical team of acting in an “inappropriate, deficient, and reckless manner”.
The experts also questioned why Maradona had been released so soon from surgery, when he was unable to care for himself and had limited or no access to critical medical devices, like oxygen and a defibrillator.
The report said medics overlooked his “unusual body swelling”, a sign of possible heart failure, and hhe had not undergone any heart or lab tests in the two weeks leading to his death.
To make its case, the prosecution will present more than 120 000 messages and audio recordings from private conversations between doctors and others involved in Maradona’s care.
Innocent
All eight medical professionals deny any wrongdoing, and have described Maradona as a difficult patient who resisted treatment.
“The death occurred unexpectedly, suddenly, during sleeping hours,” said Luque. In response to the damning medical panel report, the defence commissioned its own forensic study to support its claim that Maradona’s death “was sudden and without agony”.
Luque stressed it was Maradona himself who insisted on being discharged and treated at home.
The trial is expected to last until July.
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Homicide charges for medical team over Maradona’s death
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