Maradona death trial, 12 years requested for neurosurgeon Leopoldo Luque

Twelve years of imprisonment. It is the punishment that the prosecutor's office in Argentina is dealing with the case of the death of Diego Armando Maradona, against the neurosurgeon Leopoldo Luque: it is he who led the medical staff responsible for watching over the health of the former world champion, who died on 25 November 2020 at the age of 60, during convalescence after surgery for a cerebral embolism. The charge is murder with possible malice, aggravated by his condition as a doctor and by the bond of friendship. After the sensational cancellation of the first trial for the scandal of the documentary filmed clandestinely by judge Julieta Makintach, the new trial began in April.

The other requests for punishment (and an acquittal)

The sentence requested for Luque by the public prosecutor Patricio Ferrari is the heaviest of those requested in general for all the defendants. For the coordinator of the Swiss Medical health insurance, Nancy Forlini, and for the psychiatrist Agustina Cosachov, the request is eight years in prison for the crime of simple murder. Five years for the psychologist Carlos Diaz and four for the nurse Ricardo Almiron and his boss, Mariano Perroni, found guilty of manslaughter. According to the prosecutor, however, the clinical doctor Pedro Di Spagna should be exonerated, "the only one who did what he had to do and who had no power to decide on the victim's hospitalization conditions".

“An anarchist structure that abandoned Maradona to his fate”

Prosecutor Ferrari, in the speech that preceded the request for punishment, highlighted how the prosecutor's office had "demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt the existence of an anarchist structure characterized by absolute disorganisation". That "improvised" group, he said, was led by Leopoldo Luque. In the days following the champion's operation, he concluded, "this group of people broke all the obligations they had undertaken to undertake, abandoning Maradona to his fate".

See also

Goodbye to Diego Armando Maradona, his ex-wife and the women in his life