Eight medical experts to face trial over Maradona death

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
19 Apr 2023 16:17
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After having appealed a court decision in 2021, eight medical experts are set to stand trial for their responsibility in the death of the football legend Diego Maradona.

People gather to mourn the death of soccer legend Diego Armando Maradona outside the Diego Amrando Maradona stadium in Buenos Aires, Argentina, November 25, 2020. (Reuters)

Eight medical experts who are suspected of being involved in the death of football legend Diego Maradona will stand trial, an Argentinian appeals court announced on Tuesday. However, a trial date is yet to be set.

In 2022, Leopoldo Luque, a neurosurgeon, Agustina Cosachov, a psychiatrist, and six others, including a clinical doctor, a psychologist, a medical coordinator, a nursing coordinator, and nurses, appealed a decision that would have placed them on trial for homicide with probable aggravating conditions.

Maradona passed away in November 2020 at the age of 60 during the process of recovering from brain surgery following a blood clot. According to reports, Maradona died from an alleged "heart attack" two weeks after having undergone brain surgery. He passed away at the location to which he was transported after being discharged from the hospital; a rented house in an exclusive Buenos Aires neighborhood.

While the eight defendants were initially accused of homicide with "dolus eventualis," which would hold them responsible for "negligence while knowing that such conduct could lead to death" prosecutors later accused the medical experts of being involved in a patient's "deficient" and "reckless" home care.

In 2021, a group of 20 medical professionals assembled by Argentina's public prosecutor came to the conclusion that Maradona "would have had a better chance of survival" given competent care in an appropriate facility.