Gruesome details about Diego Maradona’s ‘abandonment’ death have emerged with the football legend said to have passed away amid the smell of ‘urine and faeces’.
Maradona died at the age of 60 in November 2020 following a heart attack, just two weeks after he was released from hospital following surgery for a bleed on his brain.
His family have accused the medical team who oversaw his care of negligence, a cover-up and derogatory comments – calling it a ‘mafia’.
Seven medical professionals are currently on trial for culpable homicide – roughly equivalent to involuntary manslaughter – but have denied the charges. They are facing prison sentences of between eight and 25 years.
However, there was a shock twist when the case was declared a mistrial on Thursday, after one of the three judges overseeing proceedings stepped down following criticism surrounding her participation in an upcoming documentary.
Her two fellow judges opted to restart the entire case from scratch.
Diego Maradona allegedly died surrounded by the smell of ‘urine and faeces’, a lawyer representing his daughters has claimed (pictured: Maradona with his doctor Leopoldo Luque)
Argentine legend Maradona passed away aged 60 in 2020 just two weeks after brain surgery
Lawyer Fernando Burlando (right) believes Maradona was ‘abandoned, isolated, and delivered to the worst possible end’, and has accused his medical staff of isolating him from loved ones
Morbid details on Maradona’s condition before his passing were revealed during the trial. Indeed, it emerged he had suffered an agonising 12-hour death in a dark room, struggling to breathe after his heart swelled to double that of a regular size.
Now, Fernando Burlando, the lawyer who represents Maradona’s daughters, Dalma and Gianinna, has shed further light on the alleged negligence of his medical team.
Speaking on Mirtha Legrand’s show, he bluntly said: ‘He died amidst the smell of urine and faeces.’ Burlando then added that Maradona had been ‘deeply sedated’ by doctors, before claiming the medics purposefully isolated him from his loved ones.
Burlando also shockingly alleged Maradona’s phone number was changed constantly, and that his daughters’ numbers were saved under different names so that he would not recognise them when they tried to call.
He said: ‘When Dalma or Gianinna arrived, Diego’s face would transform, he would become a different person, his eyes would light up.
‘But Diego didn’t understand why they didn’t call him.
‘”Why don’t you call me?” he asked one of his daughters. They told him they did it all the time, but their calls didn’t appear on his phone.’
Burlando concluded: ‘I doubt everything, and this deserves a serious investigation. Maradona was abandoned, isolated, and delivered to the worst possible end.’
Luque is pictured leaving court after the case was declared a mistrial earlier this week
Maradona’s family have accused the medical team who oversaw his care before his death of negligence, a cover-up and derogatory comments – calling it a ‘mafia’
Prosecutors showed an image of Maradona at the time of his death to the court on the first day of the trial, which showed the football legend with his abdomen completely swollen
Maradona had struggled with drug addiction, obesity, and alcoholism for decades
It was revealed earlier in the trial that four-and-a-half litres of fluid had accumulated in his organs due to an acute pulmonary edema brought on by heart failure.
Forensic expert Carlos Mauricio Casinelli showed pictures of brain clots, a ‘sign of agony’, and claimed his heart weighed 503 grams – more than a football.
Argentinian newspaper Clarin carried the horrifying details which became public, with Casinelli claiming that his torture would have been easy to spot for days.
‘The heart was completely covered in fat and blood clots, which indicate agony,’ he said.
‘This is a patient who had been collecting water over the days; that’s not acute.
‘This was something that was foreseeable. Any doctor examining a patient would find this.
‘The water he had in his abdomen, in both pleurae, and in his heart isn’t normal.
‘It doesn’t form in a day or an hour. It’s been forming over several days. It could have been from the time he was expelled (from hospital) until he died.
Prosecutors walked the court through a model of his home, saying he died in a ‘theatre of horror’ just two weeks after undergoing brain surgery and being discharged from hospital
Maradona, who won the 1986 World Cup, is still vital in Argentina’s national consciousness
‘This is likely to take at least 10 days, given the addition of cirrhosis and myocarditis.’
Maradona had struggled with drug addiction, obesity and alcoholism for decades, and reportedly came close to death in 2000 and 2004.
But prosecutors suspect that – were it not for the negligence of his doctors – his death could have been avoided.
Maradona’s cause of death was officially listed as ‘acute pulmonary edema secondary to exacerbated chronic heart failure’.
