Anew trial over the death of Argentine soccer legend Diego Maradona will begin this Tuesday, with seven members of his medical team \u200bcharged with negligent homicide nearly a year after a previous case collapsed in \u200ca mistrial.<\/p>\n
An enduring presence in Argentina from towering murals to tattoos, opens new tab Maradona died on November 25, 2020, at 60, after a heart attack while he was recuperating from brain surgery to remove a blood clot.<\/p>\n
A court in \u200bSan Isidro, near Buenos Aires, will hear testimony from just under 100 witnesses \u200bas it tries Maradona’s medical team over alleged negligence in the death \u2060of the 1986 World Cup champion.<\/p>\n
His medical team has denied wrongdoing. The defendants are \u200bpsychiatrist Agustina Cosachov, neurosurgeon Leopoldo Luque, psychologist Carlos Angel Diaz, physician Nancy Edith Forlini, nurse \u200bRicardo Almiron, 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.<\/p>\n
Two months into \u200bthe first trial, which started last March, a mistrial was declared when one of three \u200bjudges, Julieta Makintach, resigned after video surfaced showing her being interviewed by a camera crew in the \u200ccorridors \u2060of the courthouse and in her office as part of a documentary, in breach of judicial rules.<\/p>\n
The retrial will require both prosecutors and defense lawyers to reassess their strategies after the first trial aired photographs, videos, audio recordings and forensic evidence. Many witnesses, including Maradona’s \u200bchildren and his former \u200bwife, Claudia Villafane, \u2060have already testified.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors argued in the initial trial that medical professionals broke treatment protocols and that the home where Maradona was recovering \u200bfrom surgery amounted to a “theatre of horror,” where necessary care was \u200bnot provided.<\/p>\n
The \u2060defense countered that his death was inevitable given his longstanding health problems. Maradona struggled for decades with cocaine and alcohol addiction.<\/p>\n
The negligence charges emerged in 2021 after prosecutors appointed a medical board \u2060to \u200binvestigate Maradona’s death. The panel concluded his medical team \u200bacted in an “inappropriate, deficient and reckless” manner.<\/p>\n
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–Reuters–<\/p>\n
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