3 yıl önce

Maradona's death sparks involuntary manslaughter investigation

Judicial sources say probe was triggered by concerns raised by the football legend’s daughters Dalma, Gianinna and Jana over the treatment he received for his heart condition at his home in Tigre, north of Buenos Aires.

AP

Neurologist Leopoldo Luque, Diego Maradona's former personal surgeon, talks to media after his home and offices were raided during a probe of involuntary manslaughter.

Argentinian justice officials have raided the house and office of Diego Maradona's surgeon after launching an investigation into involuntary manslaughter.

Prosecutors in San Isidro, near Buenos Aires, on Monday said they were investigating Leopoldo Luque, as Argentinian TV showed footage of police seizing documents from the doctor's home and surgery.

A statement from the prosecutors' office later said, "No decisions have been made at the moment regarding the procedural situation of any person."

Maradona died of a heart attack last Wednesday aged 60, and was buried on Thursday at the Jardin de Paz cemetery on the outskirts of the Argentine capital.

A judicial source said that no official complaint has yet been filed.

"The case was initiated because he is a person who died at home and no one signed his death certificate. It does not mean there are suspicions or irregularities," the source said, requesting to remain anonymous.

Doctor says files turned over to police

Earlier, judicial sources said the probe was triggered by concerns raised by Maradona's daughters Dalma, Gianinna and Jana over the treatment he received for his heart condition at his home in Tigre, north of Buenos Aires.

"Our investigations are ongoing, we are talking to witnesses including members of the family" of Maradona, a source close to the inquiry said.

"The clinic had recommended that he go elsewhere to be hospitalised, but the family decided otherwise.

His daughters signed for him to be discharged from the hospital," said a family member, on the condition of anonymity.

Later in the day, Luque gave an emotional televised news conference.

"You want to know what I am responsible for?" the 39-year-old doctor asked between sobs. "For having loved him, for having taken care of him, for having extended his life, for having improved it to the end."

Luque said he did "everything he could, up to the impossible" and considered himself a "friend" of Maradona and saw him "as a father, not as a patient".

"They took the clinical files. There was no medical error." Luque told reporters.

Slow ambulance service?

The player's lawyer, Matias Moria, on Thursday said he would ask for a full investigation of the circumstances of the football legend's death, criticising what he said was a slow response by emergency services.

"The ambulance took more than half an hour to arrive, which was criminal idiocy," Matias said on Thursday in a Twitter post.

Luque said faster ambulance service would not have saved Maradona's life. "You would have needed medical equipment at his house, including a respirator," he told reporters.

Luque had posted a photograph of himself with Maradona when the former player left hospital on November 12, eight days after the doctor operated to remove a brain blood clot.

Maradona returned home where he received round-the-clock medical care and could remain close to his daughters.

"He should have gone to a rehabilitation centre. He didn't want to," said Luque who called Maradona "unmanageable".

'Nothing to hide'

Luque said he did not know why there was no defibrillator in case of a heart attack in Maradona's home, and made clear that the home care was not his responsibility.

"I am a neurosurgeon," said Luque.

"I am the person who has been taking care of him. I'm proud of everything I've done. I have nothing to hide. I am at the disposal of justice."

A preliminary autopsy report established that Maradona died in his sleep at noon on Wednesday of "acute lung oedema and chronic heart failure".

The prosecutor's office is awaiting the results of toxicological tests on Maradona's body.

The three prosecutors working on the case have requested his medical records, as well as recordings from neighbourhood security cameras.

SOURCE: TRTWorld and agencies