Maradona's daughter says doctors could have prevented his death

 

Argentine football legend Diego Maradona's daughter told a court Tuesday his death "would have been avoided" if doctors caring for him after surgery had done their jobs.

Maradona died on November 25, 2020, aged 60, while recovering at home from brain surgery for a blood clot. He had battled cocaine and alcohol addiction for decades.

His seven-person medical team is on trial for what prosecutors have called the "horror theatre" of the final days of his life and risk up to 25 years in prison if found guilty.

Maradona was found to have died of heart failure and acute pulmonary oedema, a condition where fluid accumulates in the lungs, two weeks after going under the knife.

"If they had done their job, this would have been avoided," his daughter Dalma Maradona, a plaintiff in the case, told a court in San Isidro in the north of Buenos Aires.

"They deceived us most maliciously," she said of the medical team.

Dalma Maradona, 38, testified that physician Leopoldo Luque, one of the accused, had assured the family that home hospitalisation was "the only option."

She was told her father would have everything he needed, including 24-hour care and an ambulance at the ready.

This "never happened," she said. "It was a house where, occasionally, a doctor would come to see him."

After her father's death, she said she found the house "disgusting, and it smelled like urine."

She claimed she had tried to visit the ex-footballer days before his death, but was denied entry to the house by Maradona's lawyer and an assistant.

The defendants in the case are accused of "homicide with possible intent" -- pursuing a course of action despite knowing it can lead to their patient's death.

Prosecutors allege the former footballer was abandoned to his fate for a "prolonged, agonizing period" before his death.

Nearly 120 witnesses are expected to testify in the long-delayed trial, which is expected to run until July.