New trial over Diego Maradona’s death begins in Argentina

A new trial over the death of Argentine football legend Diego Maradona will begin on Tuesday, with seven members of his medical team charged with negligent homicide.

This comes nearly a year after a previous case collapsed in a mistrial.

A court in San Isidro, near Buenos Aires, will hear testimony from just under 100 witnesses as it tries Maradona’s medical team over alleged negligence in the death of the 1986 World Cup champion.

His medical team has denied wrongdoing.

The defendants are psychiatrist Agustina Cosachov, neurosurgeon Leopoldo Luque, psychologist Carlos Ángel Díaz, physician Nancy Edith Forlini, nurse Ricardo Almirón, head nurse Mariano Ariel Perroni, and physician Pedro Pablo Di Spagna.

An eighth defendant, nurse Dahiana Madrid, will be tried in a separate jury trial, with no date yet set.

Two months into the first trial, which started last March, a mistrial was declared when one of three judges, Julieta Makintach, resigned after video surfaced showing her being interviewed by a camera crew in the corridors of the courthouse and in her office as part of a documentary, in breach of judicial rules.

The retrial will require both prosecutors and defence lawyers to reassess their strategies after the first trial presented photographs, videos, audio recordings, and forensic evidence.

Many witnesses, including Maradona’s children and his former wife, Claudia Villafañe, have already testified.

Prosecutors argued in the initial trial that medical professionals broke treatment protocols and that the home where Maradona was recovering from surgery amounted to a “theatre of horror,” where necessary care was not provided.

The defence countered that his death was inevitable given his longstanding health problems. Maradona struggled for decades with cocaine and alcohol addiction.

The negligence charges emerged in 2021 after prosecutors appointed a medical board to investigate Maradona’s death.

The panel concluded his medical team acted in an “inappropriate, deficient and reckless” manner. (Reuters/NAN)