Court to define how new trial into Maradona’s death will proceed

A court in San Isidro will on Tuesday decide on the format of a new trial over the 2020 death of Diego Maradona, following the annulment of the original proceedings earlier this year.

A tentative start date has been set for March 17 2026, although appeals filed by the defence teams of the seven accused healthcare professionals still need to be addressed and could delay the opening of the case.

Tuesday’s hearing is preliminary. The previous trial was cancelled in May after it emerged that one of the case’s judges had taken part in a secret documentary about the proceedings.

The scandal led to the dismissal of Judge Julieta Makintach from her post last month and wiped out more than 20 court hearings and 44 witness statements.

On Tuesday, the court will debate which pieces of evidence will be admitted in the new trial and which witness testimonies will have to be repeated.

Maradona – widely regarded as one of the world’s greatest-ever players – died on November 25, 2020, aged 60, while recovering at home from brain surgery for a blood clot, after decades battling cocaine and alcohol addiction.

According to the casefile, he died of heart failure, acute pulmonary oedema and dilated cardiomyopathy, just two weeks after going under the knife.

A new three-judge panel in San Isidro – composed of Alberto Ortolani, Pablo Rolón and Alberto Gaig, members of Oral Criminal Court (TOC) No. 7 – was appointed in July to conduct a fresh trial.

Tuesday’s hearing at the San Isidro court, north of the capital in Buenos Aires Province, could become bogged down by procedural guarantees that prevent a person from being tried twice for the same offence.

“They are essentially proposing to hold two trials here, and that is not allowed,” said Nicolás D’Albora, a lawyer for one of the accused, on Monday.

“By rushing this, they will only end up doing more harm to the case,” he told the AFP news agency..

Mario Baudry, the lawyer representing Verónica Ojeda – Maradona’s former partner and the mother of one of his children – said that “there will almost certainly be chicanas [“manoeuvres”] by the defence lawyers to try to delay the trial as much as they can.”

That is because, based on the evidence submitted in the first trial, “there will clearly be responsibility and convictions,” he added in an interview with the La Nación+ channel on Sunday.

Maradona’s medical team has been charged over the conditions of his home care, which prosecutors described as grossly negligent.

Seven of Maradona’s caregivers face prison terms of between eight and 25 years if convicted of homicide with possible malice aforethought (dolo eventual) – pursuing a course of action despite knowing it could lead to death.

The defendants are neurosurgeon and family doctor Leopoldo Luciano Luque, psychiatrist Agustina Cosachov, psychologist Carlos Ángel Díaz, medical coordinator Nancy Forlini, nursing coordinator Mariano Perroni, clinician Pedro Pablo Di Spagna, and nurse Ricardo Omar Almirón.