The long-awaited trial of medical staff who treated the late Argentine football legend Diego Maradona has started in the capital, Buenos Aires.
Maradona was convalescing when he died of a heart attack at his home in 2020, aged 60. He had been recovering at home from surgery on a brain blood clot earlier that month.
Prosecutors allege that Maradona’s death could have been avoided and accuse the hospital staff of medical negligence.
The defendants say Maradona had refused further treatment and should have stayed in hospital for longer after his operation.
They risk prison terms between eight and 25 years if convicted on the charge of “homicide with possible intent”.
In an opening statement, the prosecution said it intended to submit “solid” evidence that no member of the team “did what they were supposed to do” in the “horror theatre” that was Maradona’s death bed.
“Today, Diego Armando Maradona, his children, his relatives, those closest to him, and the Argentine people, deserve justice,” prosecutor Patricio Ferrari told the court.
Investigators have classified the case as culpable homicide, a crime similar to involuntary manslaughter, because they said the accused were aware of the seriousness of Maradona’s health condition but did not take the necessary measures to save him.
The defendants in the case are a neurosurgeon, a psychiatrist, a psychologist, a medical co-ordinator, a nursing co-ordinator, a doctor and the night nurse.
The night nurse previously said he had seen “warning signs”, but had received orders “not to wake” Maradona.
More than 100 witnesses will testify at the trial, which is expected to last until July.
Diego Maradona is largely considered to be one of the greatest footballers ever to play the game. He was captain when Argentina won the 1986 World Cup, scoring the famous “Hand of God” goal against England in the quarter-finals.
During the second half of his career, Maradona struggled with cocaine addiction and was banned for 15 months after testing positive for the drug in 1991.
The news of his death threw the football world – and his home country of Argentina – into deep mourning, with many thousands of people queuing for hours to walk by his coffin at the presidential palace in Buenos Aires.
