In San Isidro, on the northern edge of Buenos Aires, the trial over Diego Maradona’s death returned to the question of medical access to the former Argentina captain in his final days. José Antonio Maya, a clinical doctor acting as an expert for Leopoldo Luque, told the court that possible warning signs could only have been assessed if Maradona had agreed to be examined.
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Maya said Maradona died suddenly and that doctors had no alternative once the fatal event occurred. In his view, any earlier concerns required a direct consultation with the patient, something Maradona did not permit.
“It is not Maradona’s fault; it is Maradona’s responsibility,” Maya said, referring to the medical principle of patient autonomy: the right to make free, informed decisions about one’s own body and treatment.
The court has heard repeated descriptions of Maradona as a difficult patient. Records show that on 18 November 2020, seven days before his death, he dismissed Luque, his personal physician, as well as Swiss Medical’s clinical doctor Pedro Di Spagna and nutritionist Luciano Spena.
Di Spagna, who is also among the defendants, went to Maradona’s home after a nurse reported swelling in one of the footballer’s legs. Maradona refused to see him. Maya said that the 1986 World Cup winner appeared well enough at the time to decline medical intervention, adding that he allowed doctors to act when he himself felt unwell.
Dispute over the warning signs
Maya also rejected the suggestion that Maradona was known to be a cardiac-risk patient or suffered from established heart disease. His evidence aligned with that of cardiologist Ricardo Iglesias, who had testified earlier.
Maya noted that in 2000 there had been an assessment linking cocaine use to an irreversible cardiomyopathy, but said a 2007 examination had found Maradona’s heart healthy. He argued that dilated cardiomyopathy involves thinning heart walls, whereas forensic findings showed thickened walls in Maradona’s case.
The doctor was part of the interdisciplinary medical panel convened in 2021 to examine the circumstances surrounding Maradona’s death. That panel concluded that the medical team’s work had been inadequate, deficient and reckless, and that warning signs had been ignored. Maya signed that report while recording his disagreement and submitting his own document.
Prosecutor Patricio Ferrari read from Maya’s separate report, which stated that swelling in Maradona’s torso was the only sign that doctors should have identified and used to consider treatment or re-admission to hospital, provided they were able to examine him.
Maya told the hearing that oedema does not always amount to an emergency sign, though it should prompt a review. Asked whether it was sound medical practice to take no action for several days after such a warning, he replied that the patient first had to allow an examination.
Luque, Maradona’s neurosurgeon and primary doctor, is on trial alongside psychiatrist Agustina Cosachov, Swiss Medical home-care coordinator Nancy Forlini, psychologist Carlos Díaz, nursing coordinator Mariano Perroni, nurse Ricardo Almirón and clinical doctor Di Spagna. All are charged with simple homicide with possible intent.
