The team that treated Maradona in his final days was a “group of amateurs”, prosecutor Patricio Ferrari told the court on Thursday, accusing them of leaving the ailing patient “in a helpless situation, abandoning him to his fate”.

Delivering the state’s closing argument almost six years after the Argentine’s death, Ferrari and his co-prosecutor Cosme Iribarren set out the sentences they want the panel to hand down.

• Leopoldo Luque, neurosurgeon and Maradona’s personal physician: 12 years in prison, plus a 10-year ban from practising medicine
• Nancy Forlini, coordinator of the home hospitalisation: 10 years, plus a 10-year ban
• Agustina Cosachov, psychiatrist: 8 years, plus a 10-year ban
• Carlos Díaz, psychologist: 5 years
• Mariano Perroni, head nurse: 4 years, plus an 8-year ban
• Ricardo Almirón, nurse: 4 years, plus an 8-year ban
• Pedro Di Spagna, clinical doctor: acquittal

Luque, Forlini and Cosachov are charged with simple homicide with eventual intent, an Argentine category that covers acts carried out in the knowledge they could cause serious harm. Díaz, Perroni and Almirón face negligent homicide.

‘Anarchic’ home set-up and 12 hours of dying

The home set-up at the gated community north of Buenos Aires, Ferrari argued, was “anarchic, with two leaderships and two independent channels of information, sharing the same common trait: absolute disorganisation”.

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Prosecutors told the court Maradona had begun dying some 12 hours before his heart stopped, and that a timely transfer to hospital could have saved him. They pointed to the lack of a hospital bed and a defibrillator in the room, and to warning signs that went unanswered: swelling, a racing pulse, laboured breathing.

Maradona had been discharged to the rented house in Tigre on 11 November 2020, two weeks after surgery to remove a blood clot on his brain. He died there on 25 November from heart failure and acute pulmonary oedema, aged 60.

Luque’s defence

The accused deny wrongdoing. Luque told the court Maradona’s death was “a sudden, acute, and unpredictable cardiac event”, and the defence has argued each member of the group acted within the limits of their role.

This is the second attempt to try the case. The original trial opened in March 2025 and collapsed two months in after one of the three judges, Julieta Makintach, had to stand down for appearing as a lead character in a documentary about the proceedings called Justicia Divina. Ferrari at the time accused her of behaving “like an actress and not a judge”.

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Defence lawyers for the accused are now due to deliver their own closing arguments before the panel retires to deliberate.

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