Maradona Trial in Crisis: Medical Board Used Clinical Studies from His Deceased Father
The medical board in the second trial over Maradona's death allegedly used reports from his father, who died in 2015. The court is investigating whether this was an error or manipulation.
Error or sabotage: studies of Maradona's father shake the second trial
On Tuesday 18 August, during a hearing in the second trial over the death of Diego Armando Maradona, it was discovered that the medical board—the team of 11 expert witnesses that intervened in the investigation—had used clinical studies belonging to don Diego, the footballer's father, who died in 2015, rather than those of the Argentine star himself. According to La Vanguardia, the discovery emerged during questioning of nephrologist Hernán Trimarchi, a member of that board.
The problem is especially grave because the work of that board constitutes one of the fundamental pieces of evidence for the prosecution to argue that the medical attention received by Maradona in his final days was deficient and that healthcare professionals could have incurred simple homicide with eventual malice.
The San Isidro court, in shock
Criminal Court (TOC) No. 7 of San Isidro was paralysed by the discovery made by Nicolás D'Albora and Agustín Varela, lawyers for Nancy Forlini—medical coordinator for Swiss Medical and one of the accused—during questioning of another defendant. For all the defence teams, the possibility now opens up to request the recusal of the board's opinion as a key piece of evidence for the prosecution.
Prosecutor Patricio Ferrari requested urgent measures to determine whether there was an administrative error or deliberate conduct. "They deceived us, they committed a crime and now they want to overturn the trial," the prosecutor said, according to La Vanguardia. The confusion would have been possible because both the footballer and his father shared the name Diego Armando Maradona, with the difference being that the father had no middle name.
The question the court is asking is whether the laboratories made a blunder by misfiling the documents, or whether Swiss Medical deliberately incorporated the incorrect report into the case file with the aim of subsequently causing the annulment of this second proceeding.
Despite the gravity of the discovery, Ferrari maintained that the trial should continue. He also requested that some members of the medical board give statements again once the original documentation has been obtained.
Defendants and relatives react
Reactions in the trial environment were not long in coming. The lawyer for Leopoldo Duque, neurosurgeon who treated the star and also an accused in the case, expressed indignation: "A group of people who were treated as experts did not do something as elementary as verify that the studies were of the person being studied." Psychologist Carlos Díaz, another of the defendants, described the medical board as "a café chat".
On the opposite side, one of the lawyers for Maradona's children requested that D'Albora be removed from the proceedings, considering that there may have been bad faith conduct. Pablo Jurado, lawyer for Diego's sisters, defended the solidity of the opinion: "The board did not base itself solely on the 2015 study invoked by the defence, but analysed various circumstances and medical studies from different institutes and moments in Diego's life that determined the damage he had to his health. If the medical board removed the assessment of that specific study, the same conclusion would be reached. Moreover, it must be taken into account that the autopsy in the case was examined. Therefore, the conclusions would be exactly the same."
Proceedings suspended; annulment unlikely
The court has suspended its ordinary activity to investigate the anomaly and obtain the original documentation. The majority of Argentine media outlets do not anticipate that the proceedings will be declared null and void, but rather that the trial will be prolonged, as it will be necessary to determine which parts of the opinion are affected by the use of Maradona's father's studies and which can be maintained because they were based on authentic documentation of the footballer.
Source: La Vanguardia