Prosecutor seeks 12 years' imprisonment for Maradona's physician, Leopoldo Luque
The Prosecutor's office sought twelve years in prison for neurosurgeon Leopoldo Luque on homicide charges with eventual intent. Five other defendants face sentences of four to ten years.
Maradona trial: Prosecutor demands twelve years' imprisonment for Luque and lesser sentences for five other accused
According to vision360.bo, the Prosecutor's office sought this Thursday twelve years' imprisonment and ten years' professional disqualification for neurosurgeon Leopoldo Luque, Diego Armando Maradona's personal physician, for the offence of simple homicide with eventual intent. At the same time, prosecutors requested sentences of between four and ten years for five other defendants and acquittal of the seventh.
Also under the charge of homicide with eventual intent, prosecutors sought ten years' imprisonment and ten years' professional disqualification for Nancy Forlini, coordinator of home care services for Swiss Medical, and eight years' imprisonment with equivalent disqualification for psychiatrist Agustina Cosachov.
For psychologist Carlos Díaz, five years' imprisonment and ten years' professional disqualification were sought. Head nurse Mariano Perroni and nurse Ricardo Almirón each face a request for four years' imprisonment and eight years' disqualification. All three are accused of the offence of culpable homicide, a charge which, unlike eventual intent, does not require that the accused consciously assumed the risk of causing death.
Prosecutors sought acquittal of clinical physician Pedro Di Spagna, who visited Maradona on a single occasion and regarding whom they concluded that "he has had neither the authority nor the decision-making power to direct the patient's treatment".
Maradona died on 25 November 2020 during home treatment. In his closing arguments, prosecutor Patricio Ferrari stated that the six accused "breached the duties entrusted to them, carried out actions contrary to the art of medicine, failed to carry out all the acts they should have performed and placed Maradona in a situation of abandonment, leaving him to his fate".
Prosecutors described the treatment as "anarchic, with two chains of command and two independent channels of information, and a single characteristic in common—absolute disorganisation". The prosecution pointed to Luque as personal physician and to Forlini as Swiss Medical's coordinator for each having conducted a circuit of parallel decisions and without effective coordination.
The trial began on 14 April before the Criminal Oral Court No. 7 of San Isidro, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. The proceedings included 45 sessions for the production of evidence, 75 testimonies and the presentation of approximately one hundred messages extracted from the accused's mobile telephones.
Source: Google News AR — Buenos Aires