By Chinasaokwu Helen Okoro
Seven members of the medical team that treated Argentine soccer great Diego Maradona before his death will go on trial for homicide starting Tuesday in Buenos Aires.
The case revolves around allegations that negligence by the health care professionals contributed to the World Cup winner’s death in 2020 at the age of 60, which triggered an outpouring of grief in his native Argentina and across the world.
Maradona suffered a heart attack at his rented house in Tigre, an affluent district north of Argentina’s capital Buenos Aires, where he had been recovering from surgery to remove a blood clot on his brain weeks earlier.
Widely perceived as one of the sport’s greatest players, Maradona famously led Argentina to victory in the 1986 World Cup and inspired his compatriots with a rags-to-riches story that vaulted him from poverty in the hardscrabble outskirts of Buenos Aires to international reverence.
Maradona had struggled with drug addiction, obesity and alcoholism for decades, and reportedly came close to death in 2000 and 2004. But prosecutors concluded that — were it not for the negligence of his doctors — his death could have been avoided.
Seven of the eight medical professionals who have been charged in the case, including Maradona’s brain surgeon, psychiatrist and nurses, are now standing trial for culpable homicide, a crime roughly commensurate with involuntary manslaughter. They deny wrongdoing but could face up to 25 years in prison. A three-judge court will convene in the leafy Buenos Aires suburb of San Isidro to hear arguments about the case on Tuesday.
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