When they found him, the heart weighed almost twice as much as normal. The lungs, kidneys and liver were damaged. They put a white blanket over the lifeless body, which had major swelling. For the past 12 hours he had been in bed alone with great pain, according to a medical investigation quoted by the newspaper Die Zeit. He was treated on the ground floor of a house in Buenos Aires. He did not get to the shower without help, because the knee was too bad to go up the stairs. At the bed there were beer bottles. There was neither a medical alarm, wheelchair nor extra oxygen. This is how Diego Maradona, football legend Argentina considers a God. Now a trial begins against those paid to take care of his health. Dieego’s church The seven defendants were responsible for the condition of Maradonas in recent months, including a doctor, a psychologist and a brain surgeon. Now they are accused of “leaving” Maradona, and of making decisions that went against his interests. The prosecuting authority believes that Maradona’s death could have been averted, that he could be more than 60 years. The seven risk up to 25 years in prison for negligent homicide. All seven deny guilt. It could be one of the biggest lawsuits in Argentina’s history, predicts the newspaper Buenos Aires Herald. We are talking about Diego Maradona, the rebellious street boy who led the country to the World Cup title almost alone in 1986, which has its own church in Argentina. Maradona was loved because he was passionate, emotional and authentic. Divine on the field, human outside. More Argentine than anyone else. When the people saw Maradona, they saw themselves. World Champion: Maradona lifts the World Cup trophy in 1986. Photo: AP The trial will last for four months from March 11, and more than 100 witnesses are going to, reports the TV network Al Jazeera. The German newspaper Die Zeit claims that there are 16,000 pages of investigation. The trial has already been postponed three times, and the truth about Maradona’s last days lies in a fog of charges and conspiracies. Recently, her daughter Dalma Maradona cried on TV because her mother is so anxious. “She is afraid of the mafia, which controls everything, which has the money and power,” Dalma said, according to the British newspaper Daily Mail. The people want some guilty, says Santi Bauzá, from the Argentine football podcast Hand of Pod. – They feel that this death could have been averted. That Maradona was abandoned by those who were to take care of him, Bauzá tells news. Operation on the brain When Maradona returned to Argentina in 2019, he was scrolled. For eight years he had been abroad as a coach in the Middle East, and as chairman of Dynamo Brest in Belarus, where he was presented at the top of a tank. He was just finished as a coach for Dorados de Sinaloa in Mexico. Now he was going to take over Gimnasia, a team in the top division of Argentina. He filled the stands and led the team from a throne. COST KING: Maradona waves the fans in a match against the old club Boca Juniors. Photo: AP But Maradona resigned after two months, and when the pandemic hit Argentina in March 2020, he disappeared behind closed doors. He was last seen public on his birthday, October 30, 2020, when he showed up to watch Gimnasia play. Health was so bad that he left before the break. Three days later, Maradona was operated on to remove a blood collection on the outside of the brain. Instead of staying in the hospital, Maradona was treated in a house in Buenos Aires, where few knew how he was doing. But even when he was in critical state, almost no one thought he was going to lose his life. The demons – we were so used to seeing him fooling death, that we thought he would do it again, says Martin Mazur to news. Mazur was the editor of the legendary Argentine football magazine El Gráfico, and interviewed Maradona several times. He fell in love with football because of Maradona, who lived a turbulent life off the field. “He was tremendously gifted, but he also struggled with his demons,” says Daniel Edwards, who writes for the Argentine newspaper Buenos Aires Times. In the 1990s, Maradona admitted that he started cocaine in 1982, when he played for Barcelona. There he hung with counselors, middlemen and “friends” who partyed with him, lived his life and spent his money. Even as one of the world’s best -paid football players, he ended up in debt. PRESSED: Maradona lived a turbulent life off the field. Photo: AP Maradona went to Naples, where he was pictured at a party with a local mafia family. On the field he was kicked yellow and blue, but since the team always needed him, he took painkillers syringes to play. As he quit in 1997, the waist grew. In 2000 he collapsed on holiday in Uruguay. The diagnosis was a heart attack caused by a cocaine overdose, according to The Independent newspaper. But Maradona swore that he was not going to die until all the members of The Beatles were waiting for him in heaven. He checked in at a clinic in Cuba, where he smoked cigars and hung with Fidel Castro. Tung: Maradona was in bad shape when he appeared in Havana in 2004. Photo: AFP In 2004, Maradona collapsed in the stands while watching his dear Boca Juniors. They drove him to a hospital in Buenos Aires with a new heart attack. Hundreds gathered outside with lit candles, afraid he would die. Maradona survived again. – I think he felt immortal. “I’m Diego, I’m going to live forever,” Daniel Edwards told news. The same thought the people, says Bauzá. – They thought he was going to fool death again. And then he suddenly couldn’t. Atomic bomb Maradona’s last day was November 25, 2020. Mazur remembers the mood in the streets when the news came out. “It was as if someone had released an atomic bomb,” says Mazur. – Everyone can tell you where they were when they heard it and how they found it out. It is one of the most defining moments in Argentina’s history. President Alberto Fernández declared land care for three days. When the coffin with Maradona was presented at the Casa Rosada presidential palace in Buenos Aires, people lined up to say goodbye one by one. The queue covered 20 quarters. People prayed, screamed and cried. Grief: A fan despairs the day after Maradona died. Photo: Ap Andre opened beer boxes and wine bottles. Someone shouted “Come on, Diego!”, As if they were at a football game. – It was a public burial, but it was also a kind of party to show that Maradona will never be forgotten and that we will celebrate the life he lived, says Edwards. The Guardian newspaper met a man named Mauro Giménez. – Today I think everyone feels something has died. Your childhood is dead, your mother is dead, your father is dead. That’s how it feels, Giménez said. Mazur can relate to it. – It was difficult to distinguish between everything he meant to me, not just as a journalist, but as a football fan and children and teenager, says Mazur. On the subway in Buenos Aires, the screens showed a message: “Thanks, Diego”. President Fernández covered the coffin with a suit of Argentino’s juniors, Maradona’s first club, and cried. When the time ran out to see the coffin, police cut off the back of the queue, which reacted to throwing stones at the officers. The next few hours there were blood, rubber balls and arrests. KAOS: When police tried to refuse people access to Maradona’s coffin, it became a trouble. Photo: Rodrigo ABD / AP / NTB Then the coffin was driven to the cemetery, surrounded by motorcycles, people, flags and banners. Some tried to touch the car, as if it were an extension of Maradona. Surrounded: People cheered the car driving Maradona’s coffin to the burial ground. Photo: AP emotions were almost unmanageable, says Mazur. Eventually, Maradona was buried next to Dalma and Diego, her mother and father. “Suspiciously neat” then the investigation began. Police searched the house and found text messages sent by the medical staff. Now these seven are indicted: Leopoldo Luque (brain surgeon) Agustina Cosachov (psychiatrist) Carlos Díaz (psychologist) Nancy Lærini (coordinator) Mariano Perroni (coordinator) Ricardo Almirón (nurse) Pedro di spagna (doctoral person, nurse in front of an eighth person. Like the other seven, she denies guilt. In court, several charges will be listed, such as that they should have sent Maradona to hospital, and that they waived the responsibility for Maradona’s health. The indictment said that a “collection of factors” led to Maradona’s heart stopping. The defendants believe they are in the dry. “They try to find some guilty at all costs,” said Vadim Mischachuk, the lawyer of psychiatrist Cosachov, according to The Guardian. Brain surgeon Leopoldo Luque says Maradona was a difficult patient. Maradona must have thrown Luque out of her house several times, and then called him again. Luque thinks he did everything he could, that he does not regret anything. – Diego was like a father to me. If I am guilty of something, it is that I loved him, says Luque according to ESPN. In the center: Leopoldo Luque was Maradona’s brain surgeon. Photo: AP Rodolfo Baqué, the defender of nurse Dahiana Madrid, claims that some of the evidence from Maradonas rooms has been tampered with, according to the Spanish newspaper AS. Baqué believes that the images taken a few hours after death show a room that was “suspiciously neat”. Lawyer Mischachuk has pointed out that the evidence material that has been leaked to the press – audio clips, text messages – comes only from a selection of witnesses. – Isn’t that remarkable? Mischachuk said according to ESPN. He added: – It seems that there is a desire to create a trial via the media, a trial before the righteousness is going forward, and that is not good at all. But Maradona’s family requires answers, and many who were close to him have criticized those who would take care of his health. Family: Maradona with daughters Dalma (left) and Giannina (right) in 2008. Photo: Valery Hache / AFP / NTB – it feels like people are looking for someone who can be held responsible. There is not much sympathy for those accused, says Bauzá. – For many, the trial has already happened, says Mazur. At the same time, Mazur believes that more people could have done more for Maradona. The Klanen Mazur refers to the clan around the superstar, including legal and financial advisers. – Most people feel that Maradona was used as a gallion figure of them around him, especially in recent days, says Bauzá. This is nothing new for Maradona, according to journalist Daniel Edwards. – He has long been close to people who let him go with his hurtful habits instead of stopping him. But I think most people think the responsibility was on Maradona. He was an adult. He knew what he was doing. But that did not change the fact that he was very vulnerable towards the end, says Edwards. Gone: Maradona was a legend for Boca Juniors, one of the two largest teams in Argentina. Photo: AP No around Maradona has admitted anything for his dying. Maradona’s lawyer, Matias Morla, has been in a legal match with Maradona’s daughters about the ownership of Maradona’s trademarks and rights. Morla has demanded an investigation into the medical staff, and asked why it took more than half an hour before an ambulance came to Maradona’s house. Morla says he “gave his life” to the superstar. “I did everything he asked me,” said the lawyer to the newspaper La Nación in October. About just … Mazur thinks the trial takes over Argentina’s news image in total. The legal chaos is an extension of how Maradona lived. – His life was shown to the world 24 hours a day. He lived as a participant in Big Brother, says Mazur. Although Maradona has been gone for more than four years, Bauzá feels he is still here. – You can feel that Maradona is alive because he is present in the people, says Bauzá. – He lives in the way people remember him and talk about him. There are paintings of him everywhere in Buenos Aires. There are museums only for Maradona. He is with us, even though the body has left us. His soul will never leave Argentina. But even the most fanatical supporters must now acknowledge that God is dead. Mazur wished he could change who Maradona listened to. – He always ended up with people who were not his real friends, says Mazur. – We at Argentina like to forgive Diego by saying, “If only he was taken care of by people like us”.
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