Prosecutors seek 12 years in prison for Maradona’s doctor

Prosecutors have sought the maximum sentence of 12 years in prison for Leopoldo Luque, Maradona’s personal doctor. The request comes in the trial of seven members of the medical team, who have been facing proceedings since last April over the death of the Argentine football legend on November 25, 2020.

The case concerns the care Maradona received while recovering from an operation to remove a blood clot from his brain. He died of heart failure and acute pulmonary oedema at a rented house in Tigre, in the northern suburbs of Buenos Aires, two weeks after the procedure.

In its closing arguments, the prosecution described the care as a “chaotic organisation” that left Diego Maradona “to his own fate”. Prosecutor Patricio Ferrari said the defendants had left the patient helpless and abandoned him. He accused them of having “failed in their duties and carried out acts contrary to the rules of the medical profession”, as well as failing to take the necessary steps.

The medical team members face a charge of “eventual intent”, a legal concept describing someone who continues an act despite knowing it may cause harm. Summing up the prosecution’s case on Thursday, deputy prosecutor Cosme Iribarren said: “The death of Diego Armando Maradona clearly did not come out of nowhere, because the signs of this fatal end had begun to appear well before then.”

Several medical experts testified that caregivers had failed to take account of major warning signs. Before his death, Maradona was suffering from oedema, a rapid heart rate and breathing difficulties. The case also examines the decision to let him recover in a private home rather than in hospital.

Health professionals have argued that Maradona’s death was not foreseeable and that they carried out their duties properly. Each defendant has also played down their individual responsibility for his care. Maradona’s three daughters, who attended the start of the closing arguments on Thursday, covered their faces to avoid seeing the photographs.

The first trial was unexpectedly annulled last year, after two and a half months of hearings. The decision followed the revelation that one of the judges had taken part in a secret documentary about the case.