Tensions, insults, tears… The trial into the circumstances of Diego Maradona’s death, which is entering its home stretch, is a reflection of the passion and excess that the Argentine football idol unleashed during his life.
• Also read: Maradona trial: his doctors “maradonised” themselves and sought the light, accuses his former assistant
• Also read: Insults and threats between lawyers, hearing suspended in the Maradona trial
After nearly 70 testimonies from witnesses and the accused, during more than 25 hearings at a rate of two per week, the trial which began on April 14 in San Isidro (north of Buenos Aires) should end in August with a deliberation.
Seven health professionals (doctor, psychiatrist, psychologist, nurses) are on trial for potential negligence having contributed to the death of Maradona in 2020, alone on his bed in a -poorly-medicalized residence where he was convalescing post-operatively.
In the cold courtroom of the small, poorly soundproofed court, the seven defendants, dozens of lawyers and Maradona’s daughters challenged each other, harangued, carried away, threatened, and sometimes cried.
Autopsy video
Maradona’s personal doctor at the time and main accused, Leopoldo Luque, attended all the hearings and intervened each time he felt he was being blamed. He played audio recordings, presented scientific articles and even a video of Maradona’s autopsy projected in front of his daughter Gianinna.
Upset by the images, she stood up, insulting him and leaving the room with loud cries, followed by her lawyer, Fernando Burlando. The hearing was suspended. Leopoldo Luque assured that he did not notice Gianinna’s presence before launching the video clip, the family said they did not believe him.
“Poor guy! » “Shit clown!” »
Judge Alberto Gaig, who presides over the court with his assessors Pablo Rolón and Alberto Ortolani, has been playing the role of real arbiter for three months in a room where altercations and psychodramas are frequent.
“It’s impossible to stop them, like kids!” We can’t work like that,” he said one day after heated exchanges between lawyers.
The rivalry between the Maradona daughters’ lawyer, Fernando Burlando, and Leopoldo Luque’s lawyer, Francisco Oneto, is electric. Sitting a few meters from each other, they do not hide their enmity.
Mr. Burlando speaks slowly, Mr. Oneto interrupts him abruptly and speaks out loud. One day, Mr. Burlando sent his colleague “back to primary school”, while Mr. Oneto, known to have been the lawyer of Argentine President Javier Milei, told him to “go get a dictionary”.
Their loud arguments led to a suspension of the hearing, and invectives erupted in the auditorium, in the middle of a circle of police officers, colleagues and journalists: “Poor guy! » “Shit clown!” » “You’re an idiot” “Well here I am, what are you going to do? “… Until a prosecutor and a police officer pulled them away, narrowly avoiding physical contact.
Defense snacks
One cold June morning, a defense lawyer arrived in the room with a burlap bag filled with alfajores (filled cookie) with chocolate and dulce de leche (dairy jam), a typical Argentinian treat, passing it around.
A month earlier, another defense lawyer had arrived with “chipás”, small Paraguayan cheese breads, in small pink boxes from his wife’s pastry shop which, in a rare occurrence, were unanimously accepted by the lawyers.
The model
An unexpected object became the protagonist of the trial: a scale model of the house in which Maradona took his last breath. It was made by students at the University of Belgrano, measures about two meters wide by one meter high, and weighs enough to require four men to carry it from an adjoining room to the middle of the courtroom. It appears each time a witness must spatially locate the different rooms of the house.
Second trial
But apart from these facts of the hearing, the most ludicrous thing about this Maradona trial is that it should already be over, if a “first” trial in 2025 had not had to be canceled after two and a half months of investigation in a context of scandal: one of the three judges had been challenged for having participated, without everyone’s knowledge, in the production of a documentary on the case, with herself in the spotlight. “Maradonesque”!
