Eight people involved in the death of world football star Diego Maradona in November 2020 will face trial in Argentina.
The eight defendants, including Maradona’s personal doctor, will be tried for “manslaughter”, punishable by a sentence of 8 to 25 years in prison.
The Court of Appeal of the locality of San Isidro (north of Buenos Aires) confirmed Tuesday that the eight defendants will be judged after the rejection of their appeal against this request.
The eight people who will go through the dock are neurosurgeon Leopoldo Luque; psychiatrist Agustina Cosachov; psychologist Carlos Angel Diaz; the coordinator of the medical service, Nancy Edith Forlini; nurse coordinator Mariano Ariel Perroni; nurses Ricardo Omar Almirón and Dahiana Gisela Madrid; and clinical physician Pedro Pablo Di Spagna.
In his request for a trial, the prosecutor believes that the eight defendants did not respect their “mission to act within the framework of good medical practice”.
For the moment, the court has not ordered the provisional detention of the defendants, who will be prosecuted at liberty.
Among the eight defendants, the neurosurgeon and the psychiatrist will have to answer for two other counts: “use of a false private document” and “establishment of a false document”.
In February 2022, the public prosecutor had accused the defendants of having failed in their duties, each as far as he was concerned, and aggravated the risks for the patient, beyond the authorized margin, which caused the outcome fatality that could have been avoided.
The attending doctors and nurses had placed the former footballer “in a situation of vulnerability” and they abandoned him “to his fate”, which “caused the death of Diego Armando Maradona, on November 25, 2020 at 12:30 p.m. following respiratory failure and cardiac arrest.
The investigation carried out during the months following the death had concluded that the medical team of Maradona was “deficient” and “indifferent” to the fate of the footballer. She knew Maradona could die and did nothing to prevent it.