Maradona court case progress, family makes mausoleum request

A new medical report last Thursday has established that Diego Maradona died on November 25, 2020, from a “secondary heart attack and an acute pulmonary edema produced by an insufficiency of the left ventricle, leading to his death in a short period of time estimated as minutes or a few hours at most.”

These conclusions were presented by Pablo Ferrari, the official forensic expert of the Supreme Court of Buenos Aires Province in San Isidro, at the request of the lawyers of Leopoldo Luque and Agustina Cosachov, Julio Ribas and Vadim Mischanchuk respectively.

The first and only report on Maradona’s death until now was prepared by the scientific police of Buenos Aires Province, pointing to a cardiac insufficiency taking up to 12 hours to die and thus concluding that his death had been foreseeable and that the medical attention was “deficient, inefficient and indifferent.”

As a result of that, neurosurgeon Luque and psychiatrist Cosachov stand accused along with six other defendants with their trial for simple homicide as a result of possible negligence set to start on June 4. In other words, they knew that Maradona could die and did nothing to prevent it.

Now this other report maintains another hypothesis as to an abrupt end.

According to Ferrari’s forensic study presented to the Tribunal Oral Criminal 3 courthouse in San Isidro, Maradona had an acute ventricular arrhythmia of organic origin or the external action of an unnatural element, being unable to rule out the presence of a toxic agent other than therapeutic drugs.”

In the connection the expert recalled that Maradona had “antecedents of [drug] consumption.”

He further denounces the irregularity of urine samples taken at Maradona’s autopsy that same November 25.

Some 300 millilitres of urine were extracted to be examined but only two tubes with 12 millilitres each ever reached the lab with “illegible” signatures. This would be insufficient to make an analysis, hence the gravity of the case, according to the sources consulted.

Meanwhile Maradona’s children have requested that his remains be transferred from a private cemetery to a mausoleum in downtown Puerto Madero, court sources reported on Thursday.

The petition, presented to a Buenos Aires Province courtroom, asks "permission to exhume the remains and transfer them in sufficiently safe and confidential conditions … so that all the Argentine people and the citizens of the world may pay homage to the greatest Argentine idol."

The petition bears the signatures of his Dalma, Gianinna and Jana and of his former partner Verónica Ojeda, the mother of Diego Junior.

Maradona remains currently lie in rest at the private cemetery of Bella Vista on the outskirts of Buenos Aires.

The legendary playmaker died in his sickbed at the age of 60 on November 25, 2020 while convalescing from an operation for a brain haematoma under house care at a prívate residence in Tigre.

Eight health professionals are to be tried for unintentional homicide as from June 4 in a San Isidro courtroom, facing prison sentences ranging from eight to 25 years, although, quite apart from the new report, there are doubts that the trial will in fact go ahead because of a request of trial by jury.

The prosecution has accused the octet of irresponsibility in the care of Maradona.