Prosecutors call for Maradona medical staff to face trial

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Prosecutors looking into the death of Argentine soccer legend Diego Maradona in 2020 have requested that the medical staff who treated him be charged with negligent homicide.

According to the court filing cited by the official Telam news agency, the prosecutors said in their request Wednesday that "omissions" and mismanagement by the eight medical professionals in charge of Maradona placed him in a "situation of helplessness" and abandoned him "to his fate" during his home hospitalization.

Maradona died in 2020, at the age of 50, while recovering from brain surgery for a blood clot and after decades of battling cocaine and alcohol addictions.

Leopoldo Luque, a neurosurgeon and family doctor, and psychiatrist Agustina Cosachov are being investigated in connection with his death as the primary people responsible for the former footballer's health.

Six others are also charged, including psychologist Carlos Diaz and medical coordinator Nancy Forlini.

The prosecution charges them with "simple homicide with dolus eventualis," an offense in which a person is negligent while knowing that their negligence will result in the death of another person.

They could face prison sentences ranging from eight to twenty-five years.

The defendants "were the protagonists of an unprecedented, totally deficient, and reckless hospitalization at home," according to the prosecutors, and allegedly committed a "series of improvisations, mismanagement, and shortcomings."

The defense must now present its case and may request that the case be dismissed.

Maradona is widely regarded as one of the greatest footballers of all time, having led Argentina to a World Cup victory in 1986.