Diego Maradona’s last days in ‘House of Horror’ as trial into football legend’s death begins

Diego Maradona’s death is to come under scrutiny in a trial in Buenos Aires as seven people stand accused of having a role in the football legend’s passing in 2020, aged 60

Diego Maradona spent the last days of his life in a “House of Horror”, it was claimed on Tuesday as the trial of seven people accused over his death finally got underway in Argentina.

Chief prosecutor Patricio Ferrari told a Buenos Aires court his home medical care at a house outside Buenos Aires he was taken to after leaving hospital, was “reckless and deficient.” He described the defendants, charged with homicide and facing up to 25 years in prison if convicted, as being “absolutely indifferent” to the consequences.

And during a hard-hitting opening speech at the start of the trial, Mr Ferrari held up a photo in the packed courtroom of the man regarded by many as the world ’s best-ever footballer, lying on his back in bed with his bloated stomach exposed under a lifted-up black T-shirt, and said: “This is the way he died.”

More than 100 witnesses are due to give evidence over the coming five months in the trial. The care Maradona was receiving when he died from heart failure on November 25 2020, at a house in Tigre where he had agreed to be interned shortly after leaving hospital following a brain blood clot op, is set to become the focus of the trial.

The seven people in the dock include neurosurgeon Leopoldo Luque, Maradona’s doctor, and physiatrist Agustina Cosachov as well as five other health professionals responsible for his career in the last days of his life. Maradona’s former lover Veronica Ojeda, the mother of his 12-year-old son Dieguito, and his two grown-up daughters Dalma and Gianinna with his ex-wife Claudia Villafane, all attended the opening court session.

Dalma broke down in tears and grabbed hold of her sister’s hand when the harrowing last photo of Diego on his death bed was shown in court. Mr Ferrari said: “The right to truth is a human right and today Diego Armando Maradona, his children, his relatives, those closest to him and the Argentinian people deserve justice.”

Saying the public prosecution’s “solid” case was supported by messages from phones confiscated during property searches and witness evidence including the testimony of a number of medical experts, he added: “We will show that between November 11 and 25 2020, Diego Armando Maradona was introduced into house 45 in the San Barrio neighbourhood in San Benavides in Tigre when, clearly the victim, he was not in full use of his mental faculties and even less could decide on his own about his health.

“He entered that place for a clinical rehabilitation and home medical care that we can say without any doubt was calamitous.”

Describing the defendants as a bunch of “people who improvised”, he added: “They neglected all the duties they had. They co-operated in putting into place a series of factors or circumstances that increased the permitted risk to generate the death of Diego Armando Maradona which is something we say they were absolutely different to.

“You will see during this trial what reckless home care is, reckless, deficient, without precedent, without any type of control during the period that ended with Diego’s death. In that House of Horror where Diego Maradona died no-one did what they had to do.”

Before the start of the hearing Veronica Ojeda launched into an expletive-filled tirade at Agustina Cosachov. TV cameras filmed her from a distance shouting ‘Daughter of a b****’ before police stepped in to separate them.

The criminal investigation launched shortly after Maradona was found lifeless in bed was initially classified as a manslaughter probe. It was reclassified as a homicide investigation following a damning report by a medical board which concluded Maradona’s care team acted “inadequately, deficiently and recklessly.”

A conviction on the charge the seven defendants are being tried on would carry a prison sentence of between eight and 25 years under Argentinian law, if the health professionals under the microscope were found guilty of acting in a way they knew could lead to someone’s death but did nothing to avoid it.

Luque, who denies wrongdoing, broke down in tears days after Maradona’s shock death following a search of his home near Buenos Aires and claimed: “If I’m responsible for anything when it comes to Diego, it was loving him, caring for him, improving his life to the end and extending it.”

After his death it emerged Maradona had been buried without his diseased heart, which at 503 grams weighed almost double that of a normal heart for a man his age. Doctor and journalist Nelson Castro said at the time part of the reason had been to prevent fans from stealing it.

The other defendants apart from Luque and Cosachov are nurses Ricardo Almiron; Nancy Forlini and Mariano Perroni: psychologist Carlos Diaz and doctor Pedro Di Spagno. An eighth person, nurse Gisella Dahiana Madrid, will be tried separately later this year.

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