Maradona's Doctor Faces 12-Year Prison Bid as Argentina's Landmark Death Retrial Ends

Argentina's most closely watched criminal proceeding in recent memory closed its debate phase on Thursday, setting up a Christmas-week reckoning for neurosurgeon Leopoldo Luque and five co-defendants. Judges at San Isidro's Criminal Tribunal confirmed the verdict on December 22 after six months of hearings and arguments — the second attempt by the Argentine justice system to assign criminal blame for the 2020 death of the country's most mythologized footballer.

What Each Party Asked For

Prosecutors Patricio Ferrari and Cosme Iribarren built their case around one of Argentine criminal law's most demanding classifications: homicidio simple con dolo eventual, or simple homicide with eventual intent — a charge implying the accused recognized the potentially lethal consequences of their conduct and pressed forward regardless. For Luque, the primary physician in Maradona's home care arrangement, the prosecution sought 12 years' imprisonment, paired with a decade of professional disqualification that would effectively end his medical career. The charge itself carries a sentencing range of 8 to 25 years.

Plaintiff attorney Fernando Burlando, representing Diego Maradona's daughters Dalma and Gianinna, delivered the final plaintiff address and demanded 15 years for Luque, alongside 12 years for Swiss Medical coordinator Nancy Forlini and 10 for psychiatrist Agustina Cosachov. Mario Baudry, representing youngest son Dieguito Fernando, sought the steepest penalty of any party in the case: 16 years each for both Luque and Forlini.

A Retrial Born From Courtroom Scandal

This proceeding is Argentina's second attempt to reach a verdict. The original trial opened on March 11, 2025, but collapsed after approximately 21 hearings and 44 testimonies, when a producer was discovered filming unauthorized documentary footage inside the courtroom — footage centered on Judge Julieta Makintach herself — in direct violation of filming restrictions the court had imposed. Her removal from the case, followed by her two colleagues' resignations, voided every hearing and testimony on record and forced a full reset of the proceedings.

A fresh three-judge panel was assembled, and the retrial began April 14, 2026. Over 45 hearings and 75 witness testimonies, the panel reconstructed the two-week home convalescence at the private San Andrés estate in Tigre, north of Buenos Aires, that preceded Maradona's death. Seven healthcare professionals stood accused — including Luque, Cosachov, and psychologist Carlos Díaz — of criminal indifference toward the foreseeable deterioration of their patient's condition.

What the Prosecution Argued Before the Bench

Ferrari anchored the state's theory around willful passivity. The prosecution's core argument was that Luque, as Maradona's chief physician, observed visible and escalating warning signs during the final days of the footballer's life and chose inaction at every opportunity. AFP reporting confirmed the prosecution described his overall attitude as "always to do nothing" — framing deliberate indifference, rather than isolated incompetence, as the crux of the criminal charge. Ferrari characterized the team's conduct as having recognized the risk of a fatal outcome, accepted it, and produced it through systematic inaction.

The prosecution also sought 10 years each for Forlini and Cosachov, with shorter terms for nursing staff. General practitioner Pedro Di Spagna was the one defendant spared by every accusing party: both the state's prosecutors and all plaintiff attorneys agreed the evidence fell short of sustaining charges against him. The bench moved promptly on that consensus, formally acquitting Di Spagna before the trial closed — leaving the remaining six defendants to await the December ruling.

The Daughters Speak, the Accusations Grow Sharper

Burlando's five-hour closing statement on October 14 delivered the harshest language of the entire plaintiff phase. He told the court that Maradona had not merely received inadequate medical care — he had been deliberately abandoned by the professionals responsible for keeping him alive. In a phrase that echoed across Argentine media, he declared the team had "killed a mythological hero." Burlando argued the medical team had window after window of opportunity to redirect Maradona's treatment and chose, each time, to do nothing — condemning their combined inaction as brutal indifference. Outside the courthouse after arguments concluded, Dalma Maradona addressed reporters in a voice breaking with emotion: "I hope my father receives the justice he deserves — like anyone else."

Baudry's demand for 16 years reflected his reading that Luque and Forlini bore co-equal responsibility for constructing and overseeing a home medical arrangement that was, in his characterization, deficient and negligent from the very first day. The divergence in requests across plaintiff teams — ranging from 12 to 16 years for Luque — reflects genuine disagreement over degree of culpability rather than contradictory conclusions: every querella agreed Luque carried the heaviest share of responsibility; they differed only on how many years of his life that burden should cost him.

The Defense: Evidence, Not Theater

Defense attorney Roberto Rallín opened his October 21 address by committing to prove Luque's innocence through the trial record rather than through performance — explicitly rejecting what he characterized as a media-driven prosecution built on spectacle rather than evidence. Co-defender Francisco Oneto challenged the medical logic at the heart of the case — contending that clinical tests conducted before Maradona's surgery revealed no cardiac abnormalities whatsoever, and that the heart failure that killed him carried "absolutely no possibility" of prior detection by any means available to the team at the time.

A consistent thread across all defense teams was the question of professional scope: Luque is a neurosurgeon whose role was to manage a brain injury — not to oversee cardiac care or general internal medicine. His attorneys argued throughout the retrial that assigning him full accountability for every dimension of a multi-disciplinary home hospitalization exceeded both the legal and the clinical logic of specialty-based medical practice. Luque, offered a final turn to address the court before the debate phase closed, kept it to three words: "I am innocent."

What December 22 Could Mean

Judges Ortolani, Rolón, and Gaig have nearly two months to deliberate. Under Argentine law, a conviction on the homicidio simple con dolo eventual charge carries a minimum sentence of 8 years — meaning that even the most conservative ruling in the prosecution's favor would result in prison time for those found guilty. Diego Armando Maradona died on November 25, 2020, at a rented property within the private San Andrés estate in Tigre, north of Buenos Aires, two weeks after undergoing surgery to drain a subdural hematoma from his brain. His country has been searching for a legal answer to his death for six years. By Christmas, it will finally have one.

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