MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Healthcare team treating Maradona faces manslaughter charges

If found guilty, the eight defendants risk jail sentences of 8 to 25 years

The physicians and healthcare professionals who treated Diego Armando Maradona during his final days are to be tried for manslaughter in the death of the late Argentine football legend, it was announced.

Neurosurgeon Leopoldo Luque and psychiatrist Agustina Cosachov have been deemed by prosecutors as responsible for Maradona's death, which occurred on November 25, 2020, in a residence in Tigre, on the northern outskirts of Buenos Aires.

Psychologist Carlos Díaz, medical coordinator Nancy Forlini, nursing coordinator Mariano Perroni, nurses Ricardo Almirón and Dahiana Madrid, and GP Pedro Pablo Di Spagna have also been charged.

The post-mortem showed Maradona's death was the result of an “acute pulmonary edema secondary to chronic aggravated cardiac insufficiency.”

According to 17 of the 22 experts who participated in the forensic investigation, Maradona was a patient with multiple pathologies who “was not in full use of his mental faculties” and could have had “a better chance of survival” if he had been hospitalized in a clinic.

Maradona, the prosecutors explained, agonized for at least 12 hours due to “deficient care in a home hospitalization that was not appropriate, a modality chosen and endorsed by the treating medical team who is now being held accountable for ”omissions“ that resulted in a ”situation of impotence,“ abandoning Maradona ”to his fate“ during a ”scandalous“ home recovery.

If found guilty, the eight defendants risk sentences from 8 to 25 years in prison, in addition to losing their licenses to practice.

The investigation into Maradona's death was led by prosecutors Laura Capra, Cosme Iribarren, and Patricio Ferrari, under supervision from San Isidro Attorney General John Broyad. The prosecutors argue that the defendants staged ”an unprecedented, totally deficient and inconsiderate home treatment“ and committed a ”series of improvisations, terrible and deficient management.”

The defendants' legal teams must now present their arguments.