Lawyers for Diego Maradona‘s daughters Dalma and Gianinna told an Argentine court on Wednesday that his carers murdered him, and asked for prison terms of up to 15 years for six of the seven medical professionals on trial. The request, made during closing arguments in San Isidro, a suburb of Buenos Aires, places the two daughters at the severe end of a family that has not agreed on how hard the court should punish the team that looked after the footballer in his final days.
Fernando Burlando, who represents the two women, accused the defendants of callous disregard toward a man he said they allowed to die, telling the judges they “killed a mythological hero.” Other sentencing demands from the Maradona side came in well below his. Pablo Jurado, counsel for the player’s three sisters, Rita, Claudia and Ana, asked for terms of up to 10 years for five of the seven defendants and singled out Nancy Forlini, the medical coordinator, for the harshest punishment.
A third position had come the day before. The lawyer for Maradona’s youngest son, 13-year-old Diego Fernando Maradona, asked on Tuesday for 16-year sentences for each of two defendants: Leopoldo Luque, the player’s personal physician, and Forlini. Sentences at that length sit well above what state prosecutors have requested. Prosecutors opened their closing case last week by calling for guilty findings against six of the seven accused, with prison terms between four and 12 years, and they said Luque should receive the stiffest penalty.
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The seven defendants are Luque, a neurosurgeon; psychiatrist Agustina Cosachov; psychologist Carlos Diaz; Forlini; nursing coordinator Mariano Perroni; clinician Pedro Pablo Di Spagna; and nurse Ricardo Almiron. They are charged under the Argentine legal concept of “dolo eventual,” which means they are accused of knowing their actions or omissions could lead to his death and carrying on regardless. The Eastern Updates’ reading of the charge puts the maximum penalty at 25 years in prison. A separate nurse, Gisela Madrid, faces a jury trial in a parallel case.
Maradona, the captain of Argentina’s 1986 World Cup winners, died on November 25, 2020, aged 60, at a rented house in Tigre. The cause was heart failure with acute pulmonary edema, two weeks after he underwent surgery for a brain clot. Luque has said Maradona underwent surgery on November 3 for a subdural hematoma, and that his own involvement afterward was limited to monitoring the recovery. The prosecution’s case rests on the claim that the home convalescence was grossly inadequate, with too little staff, equipment and supervision.
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The defendants deny the charges and have spent months in court blaming each other. Luque has argued that Maradona died of a “sudden, acute and unpredictable event,” and he has repeatedly told the court he made none of the medical decisions. Forlini, in turn, said she could not be blamed for omitting duties she was never asked to perform, and she pointed to Luque and Cosachov, the two professionals identified as having devised and organized the home hospitalization. Cosachov, in testimony reported during the trial, pointed back at Forlini over a misunderstanding with the health insurer in mid-November.
The prosecution’s closing statement used equally pointed language about the team’s structure. Prosecutor Patricio Ferrari told the court that the defendants’ chaotic organization left the player in a helpless situation, “abandoning him to his fate.” His colleague Cosme Iribarren argued that two layers of medical care, one led by Luque, Cosachov and Diaz and another provided through the Swiss Medical health company that Forlini represented, both failed, and that the death was avoidable.
This is the second attempt to try the case. A first trial collapsed last year after two and a half months of hearings, when it emerged that one of the judges had taken part in a clandestine documentary about the matter. The retrial began in April, and the case was expected to draw more than 100 witnesses, including relatives and doctors who treated Maradona over the years. The family has long argued that leaked audio and text messages showed his health was in imminent danger.
Prosecutors and the families’ lawyers each get a set number of hours to speak, and the defense teams follow. The closing arguments are set to run until the end of October, after which the court is expected to reserve their ruling for a later date. Maradona’s daughters sat in the courtroom on Thursday of last week to hear the prosecution’s opening summation.
If convicted, the accused face up to 25 years in prison.
