Beginning Tuesday in Buenos Aires, seven members of the medical staff who cared for Argentine football legend Diego Maradona before to his passing will stand trial for homicide.
The lawsuit centres on claims that the World Cup winner’s death in 2020 at the age of 60 was caused in part by the medical staff’s carelessness, which led to a worldwide outpouring of mourning in his home country of Argentina. Maradona had been recuperating from surgery to remove a blood clot on his brain weeks prior when he had a heart attack at his rental home in Tigre, an upscale neighbourhood north of Argentina’s capital, Buenos Aires.
Widely perceived as one of the sport’s greatest players, Maradona famously led Argentina to victory in the 1986 World Cup and inspired his compatriots with a rags-to-riches story that vaulted him from poverty in the hardscrabble outskirts of Buenos Aires to international reverence.
Maradona 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 Maradona’s brain surgeon, psychiatrist and nurses, are now standing trial for culpable homicide, a crime roughly commensurate with involuntary manslaughter. They deny wrongdoing but could face up to 25 years in prison. A three-judge court will convene in the leafy Buenos Aires suburb of San Isidro to hear arguments about the case on Tuesday.
