The Argentine prosecutor's office presented its final arguments this Thursday in the trial regarding the death of Diego Armando Maradona and requested 12 years in prison for neurosurgeon Leopoldo Luque, the star's personal doctor, accused of the crime of simple homicide with eventual intent, along with ten years of professional disqualification.
The prosecutor Patricio Ferrari described the care Maradona received during his home hospitalization as "the most inadequate and reckless hospitalization of all time" and referred to the medical team as a "group of amateurs."
In addition to the maximum sentence requested for Luque, the prosecution sought 10 years of imprisonment and another ten years of disqualification for Nancy Forlini, home care coordinator for Swiss Medical, also for homicide with eventual intent.
For psychiatrist Agustina Cosachov, the prosecutors requested eight years of imprisonment and ten years of disqualification under the same charge, while for psychologist Carlos Díaz, they sought five years in prison and ten years of disqualification, accused in this case of negligent homicide.
The head nurse Mariano Perroni and nurse Ricardo Almirón each received a sentence of four years in prison and eight years of disqualification, also for involuntary manslaughter.
The only one of the seven defendants for whom the prosecution requested acquittal was the clinical doctor Pedro Di Spagna, of whom Ferrari stated that he "had no authority or decision-making power to manage the patient's health," since he only visited Maradona on one occasion.
The difference between the applied charges is substantial: homicide with eventual intent—charged against Luque, Forlini, and Cosachov—implies that the defendants were aware that their actions could cause death and chose to take that risk, whereas negligent homicide involves carelessness without intent.
In their arguments, prosecutors Ferrari and Cosme Iribarren described the treatment as "anarchical, with two leaderships and two independent channels of information, all sharing one common characteristic: absolute disorganization," pointing to Luque as the personal physician and Forlini as the coordinator of Swiss Medical as the two pillars of that chaos.
According to the accusation, the defendants "breached their duties, took actions contrary to the practice of medicine, omitted all the actions they were required to perform, and placed Maradona in a state of helplessness, leaving him to his fate."
The prosecutor's office also asserted that Maradona began to die approximately 12 hours before his passing and that timely transfer to a medical facility could have saved his life.
Luque himself, in his latest statement before the court on September 29, denied all responsibility and claimed that the death was "a sudden, acute, and unpredictable cardiac event." "I loved him, he was my idol," stated the neurosurgeon.
Maradona passed away on November 25, 2020, at the age of 60, in a private residence in San Andrés, Benavídez, Buenos Aires Province, where he was under home care following surgery for a subdural hematoma. The official cause of death was acute pulmonary edema secondary to exacerbated chronic heart failure.
This is the second oral trial for the case: the first, which began in March 2025, was annulled after it was discovered that the judge participated in an unauthorized documentary about the process. The current trial commenced on April 14, 2026, before the Criminal Oral Court No. 7 of San Isidro. Following the prosecutor's statements, the statements of the plaintiffs and the defenses are still pending before the court issues its verdict.
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