One of Diego Maradona’s daughters said this Tuesday (21), at the trial in Argentina over the football star’s death in 2020, that “the manipulation” by her father’s medical team “was absolute and horrible”.
Gianinna Maradona told a hearing in San Isidro, north of Buenos Aires, that she and her siblings were induced to accept a home stay presented as “serious” and well-equipped, but that in reality it was not adequate to care for her father, who was recovering from brain surgery when he died.
“The manipulation was absolute and horrible,” he said. “I trusted these three beings, and the only thing they did was manipulate us and leave my son without a grandfather,” he said, referring to neurosurgeon Leopoldo Luque, psychiatrist Agustina Cosachov and nurse Carlos Díaz.
“In addition to what they talked to us, they had another strategy in parallel”, pointed out Gianinna, 36 years old, after WhatsApp audios were played that members of Maradona’s medical team had exchanged about how to protect themselves if the former player suffered a fatality.
“I never imagined that they were already thinking that they had to protect themselves, throw the ball to the patient, it makes me quite angry to hear that”, said the daughter of the world champion with Argentina in 1986 in a statement that took an hour and a half before the midday break.
At the beginning of the hearing, the prosecution reproduced messages involving neurosurgeon Luque, who asked to testify immediately afterwards, as a response to the evidence presented by the prosecution.
The new trial for the death of the legendary football player began on the 14th after the annulment of the first one a year ago, in which it was discovered that one of the judges participated in a clandestine documentary about the process.
It is the third time that Luque has testified since the trial began, and he will testify “as often as necessary”, highlighted Julio Rivas, one of his defense lawyers.
In addition to Luque, Cosachov and Díaz, four defendants face up to 25 years in prison for intentional homicide, which implies awareness that their actions could lead to death.
In the second process, around 120 witnesses will be heard.
The Argentine football icon died at the age of 60 on November 25, 2020 due to a cardiorespiratory crisis and pulmonary edema in a private residence in Tigre, north of Buenos Aires.
Defenses maintain that he died of natural causes. “If there is one thing that has been ruled out, it is an intentional criminal plan to kill Maradona. Anyone who continues to maintain this is being cruel to the family and the defendants,” Vadim Mischanchuk, Agustina Cosachov’s lawyer, told Con Vos radio.
The process in San Isidro will feature 30 hearings twice a week and should take place at least until July. An eighth nurse will be tried in another case.
