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re: Maradona: Med Staff Arrested For Culpable Homicide of Football Legend
Diego Maradona Death Treated as Possible Involuntary Manslaughter as Physicians Home Searched
Prosecutors are trying to establish whether his death was caused by medical negligence, with personal physician Leopoldo Luque now under investigation
BBC News, 1 DEC 2020.
Investigators probing the death of Diego Maradona have ordered a search of his personal physician’s home and office amid local reports they are now treating it as a possible case of involuntary manslaughter.
Prosecutors behind the order, said to have been sanctioned by a judge, are understood to be trying to establish whether the football legend was the victim of medical negligence.
The dramatic twist in the probe into Maradona’s death followed overnight reports he had rowed with personal physician Leopoldo Luque in the days before he suffered heart failure last Wednesday.
Luque is at his home while the search on the outskirts of Buenos Aires takes place today.
The searches are set to take several hours and Mr Luque is expected to be formally quizzed for the first time once the documents and other material prosecutors take away is analysed.
Maradona’s personal physician is expected to be questioned as a suspect rather than a witness, although prosecutors are yet to make any official comment on local reports they have placed Mr Luque under official investigation on suspicion of negligence.
Formal charges would be laid at a later stage if the authorities feel there is enough evidence to warrant a criminal accusation and trial.
The searches are said to have been prompted by accusations levied at Mr Luque by Diego’s daughters Dalma, Giannina and Jana in statements they made to investigators on Saturday.
Maradona was laid to rest in Buenos Aires on Friday (Image: JUAN IGNACIO RONCORONI/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)
The personal physician of Maradona, Leopoldo Luque (Image: AFP via Getty Images)
The search at the doctor’s home in a leafy residential street in Adrogue on the southern outskirts of Buenos Aires began at 8.40am on Sunday.
It is understood to be focused on a small office at his house and Mr Luque, said to be cooperating with police and prosecutors, has handed over his phone and computer for expert examination.
The second search, at his surgery in an office block in the upmarket Buenos Aires neighbourhood of Belgrano, began around 10am local time.
Mr Luque admitted earlier this month he spent four months behind bars after being arrested for homicide following a street fight.
Police outside the offices of Leopoldo Luque also
Laura Capra, the state prosecutor in charge of a team of four prosecutors probing the circumstances of Maradona’s death, is understood to be leading the Belgrano search.
A document leaked to Argentinian media overnight indicates psychiatrists involved in Maradona’s treatment while he was in hospital had requested a permanent ambulance outside his rented home on the exclusive estate of San Andres once he was released on November 11.
The document, dated November 4, also states “nurses, preferably male nurses employed full-time and specialising in substance abuse” should be part of Maradona’s home treatment plan.
Diego’s daughters are understood to have told investigators neither happened before pointing the finger at Mr Luque.
Maradona’s personal physician angered Dalma Maradona, the football legend’s eldest daughter, by releasing a photo of him alongside Diego just before he was released from hospital after his brain blood clot op.
Leopoldo Luque revealed his secret past after being thrust into the news spotlight following the retired footballer’s latest in a long line of health scares in the run-up to his untimely death last Wednesday.
He confessed to being tried for killing a man during a punch-up in his home town of Villa Carazo on the outskirts of Buenos Aires.
The neurosurgeon, who provided regular updates on Maradona’s condition since his brain blood clot op, spent four months in a Buenos Aires prison before being charged with homicide and ordered to stand trial.
His lawyer showed him witness statements claiming he had kicked his alleged victim while he was on the ground and stamped on his head.
Luque, a 33-year-old intern at the time, was cleared of any wrongdoing in April 2015 following a trial.
He admitted getting involved in a street altercation involving his relatives and two other men.
But he told Argentinian sports daily Ole: “The person who ended up dying left the scene and nobody ended up on the floor or was knocked unconscious.
“A few days later my brother called me to say one of the other two men were serious.
“I knew I hadn’t done anything but one day, out of the blue the police came to the hospital where I was working and took me away.
“When my lawyer showed me what the witnesses had said in their statements, that I’d kicked people while they were lying on the ground and stamped on their heads, I couldn’t believe it.
“One of my brother-in-laws was also arrested for homicide. It was a nightmare. I thought my career was over.”
Claiming witnesses had exonerated him of any blame over the 2011 incident at trial, he added: “I went back to work without problems after the judgement.
“Everyone backed me because they knew I was innocent but it still hurts me to bring all that up again.”
State prosecutors are analysing CCTV footage of the cameras on the estate where Diego was living and the mobile phones of the nurses who were looking after him in the hours leading up to his death.
They said after his death in their initial comments there was nothing pointing to any criminality and said everything so far suggests the former footballer died from natural causes.
Leopoldo Luque was not at the rented home Maradona was using when he died.
A judicial source told respected Argentinian newspaper La Nacion: “As Luque was Maradona’s personal physician the decision was taken to search his house and surgery to look for documents that could determine whether, during Maradona’s treatment at home, there were any irregularities."
Investigators are believed to be searching for details of the medicine being administered to Maradona as well as his health records and other documents that could play a key role in the investigation.
Thirty police and judicial officials are said to be at Luque’s home and another at his work address.
Diego Maradonas' Kids, Ex-Fiancée and The Taxman Battle for Stars' £75m Fortune
Legal experts are poring over Maradona’s assets, which are understood to include at least five houses, a fleet of luxury cars and business interests across the globe...
Experts say the World Cup 1986 winner’s estate will generate millions more for years to come (Image: Getty)
Diego Maradona and Rocio Oliva pictured in 2017 (Image: PA)
In life, Diego Maradona spent his glittering career surrounded by players trying to get the ball off him.
Now in death, his £75million estate is being tackled by up to 10 children, a former lover and the Italian taxman – all with a share of his millions as their goal.
Yesterday, the inheritance game kicked off with a move as outrageous as any of the Argentine icon’s on the pitch.
Just 48 hours after his burial, a teenager who claims he’s Maradona’s illegitimate son demanded the body be dug up.
Santiago Lara, 19, wants an exhumation so a DNA test can be carried out on the soccer legend who died of a heart attack at 60 on Wednesday.
And that’s just the opener.
The line-up for Maradona’s fortune includes Rocio Oliva, engaged to him for six years before they split in 2018. She wants “financial compensation”, says leading Argentine lawyer Ana Rosenfeld
The hero’s five confirmed children including Diego Jnr, 34, – born to Italian model Cristiana Sinagra and kept secret 29 years – Dalma, 33, Gianinna, 31, Jana, 24 and Diego Fernando, seven, are also entitled to part of his fortune. And Miss Rosenfeld revealed there could be claims from all Maradona’s alleged offspring.
They include Santiago Lara and Magali Gil, 23, as well as three others born to two separate mothers in Cuba where he was treated for drug problems.
Regarding whether Santiago’s exhumation request might be granted, family law expert Miss Rosenfeld said the country had seen “other cases where it was necessary to exhume a body to check DNA”.
Experts say the 1986 World Cup winner’s estate will generate millions for years to come in image rights, memorabilia and through lucrative investments the star made around the world.
Santiago Lara has demanded the exhumation of the soccer legend’s body (Image: Gerard Couzens)
There's a family feud going on over Diego Maradona's millions, pictured here with ex-wife Claudia Villafane and daughters Dalma Nerea and Giannina Dinorah (Image: Alpha Press)
As the search to track down his assets begins, it also emerges part of Maradona’s wealth may go to the Italian government in a disputed multi-million pound tax bill while playing for Napoli in the Eighties.
The player had fought the bill for decades. But in 2013, a Rome court ruled he owed £36million from 1985 until 1990, including interest and penalty charges.
Maradona’s long-standing Italian tax lawyer Angelo Pisano has cast doubt on how much money Maradona actually left behind – claiming the star never paid him and lived off the charity of fans, even eating in restaurants for free.
Mr Pisano said: “He didn’t earn much as a player. And he wasn’t interested in money – so many people exploited that."
With Diego Jnr and Cristiana
And Pisani claimed Maradona would have finally been cleared of tax evasion at a court hearing next year, adding: “No criminal, even a Mafioso, was ever treated this badly.”
The man who gained notoriety in England for his 1986 Hand of God goal was found dead in a house he rented just outside Buenos Aires.
Maradona was recovering from surgery for a blood clot on his brain and had been discharged on November 11.
Friends say he had not used cocaine for years after decades of abuse. But it is understood he had replaced the habit with new addictions to alcohol and psychotropic drugs.
And he also had problems with mobility, caused by football injuries, which left him struggling to leave the house in his final days.
His assets are understood to include at least five properties in Buenos Aires. His garages house cars such as a Rolls Royce Ghost and a BMW i8.
He had a long-time contract with sportswear firm Puma and deals with video games firms Konami and EA Sports allowing them to use his name.
And he’s said to still have various business interests in Italy, investments in Cuba and soccer schools in China.
The man who made millions grew up in squalor, barely able to read or write, in the shanty town of Villa Fiorito on the outskirts of Buenos Aires.
But his life became a classic rags to riches success story after he made his debut in top flight side Boca Juniors at just 15, and led Argentina to World Cup glory in 1986.
After retiring as a player after spells at Barcelona, Napoli and Sevilla, Maradona managed Argentina before joining Mexican side Dorados based in Culiacán, fortress of the Sinaloa drug cartel featured in the Netflix Narcos series.
Meanwhile the one main woman in his life who can’t join the queue for inheritance is Dalma and Gianinna’s mum Claudia Villafane, 58, who was married to him 19 years.
They divorced in 2004.
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