Fresh trial over Diego Maradona’s death begins

By Tolulope Oke

A new trial over the death of Argentine football legend Diego Maradona has begun, with seven members of his medical team facing charges of negligent homicide.

The retrial comes nearly a year after the previous case collapsed in a mistrial. The San Isidro court, located near Buenos Aires, will hear testimony from nearly 100 witnesses as it assesses whether Maradona’s care team acted negligently in the death of the 1986 World Cup champion.

“This retrial demands that both prosecution and defence reassess their strategies following the evidence presented in the first trial,” a court official said.

The defendants include:

Psychiatrist Agustina Cosachov
Neurosurgeon Leopoldo Luque
Psychologist Carlos Ángel Díaz
Physicians Nancy Edith Forlini and Pedro Pablo Di Spagna
Nurse Ricardo Almirón
Head Nurse Mariano Ariel Perroni

An eighth defendant, nurse Dahiana Madrid, will face a separate jury trial at a later date.

The initial trial, which began in March last year, ended abruptly after Judge Julieta Makintach resigned following the release of video footage showing her being interviewed for a documentary inside courthouse premises, a violation of judicial protocol.

During the first trial, prosecutors presented photographs, videos, audio recordings, and forensic evidence, arguing that Maradona’s medical team breached treatment protocols and that his home recovery environment was a “theatre of horror” that failed to provide proper care.

The defence argued that Maradona’s death was inevitable, citing decades of cocaine and alcohol addiction and chronic health problems.

Negligence charges against the medical team were first raised in 2021 after a medical board investigation, which concluded that the team had acted in an “inappropriate, deficient, and reckless” manner.

Many witnesses, including Maradona’s children and former wife Claudia Villafañe, have already testified or are expected to testify in the retrial.

The outcome of this trial is expected to draw global attention, given Maradona’s legendary status and the controversy surrounding the circumstances of his death.