DIEGO Maradona’s former bodyguard has been arrested on suspicion of perjury.
The Buenos Aires court trying seven of the eight people charged over the soccer legend’s death ordered Julio Cesar Coria’s detention after a public prosecutor dramatically accused him of false testimony.
He had given evidence as a witness at the ongoing trial, which started on March 11 and is set to continue until the summer.
Patricio Ferrari alleged Coria had lied when he said he hadn’t spoken with Diego’s medic Leopoldo Luque before the footballer’s death and wasn’t the neurosurgeon’s friend.
The prosecutor produced a series of WhatsApp messages between the ex-bodyguard and Luque, one of the defendants on trial, which included an invitation to a barbecue and conversations about Maradona’s health.
Mr Ferrari also claimed Coria had perjured himself by failing to mention that another defendant, psychiatrist Agustina Cosachov, had performed CPR on Diego when he gave a first sworn statement but claimed from the witness stand she HAD tried to revive the footballer.
Trial judges ordered his arrest after a brief recess while they deliberated on the prosecution request.
Coria had been called as a witness due to his close relationship with Maradona leading up to his death.
He was at Diego’s house on November 25 2020 – the day the former Barcelona and Napoli star died from heart failure at a house in Tigre near Buenos Aires where he had agreed to be interned shortly after leaving hospital following a brain blood clot.
Luque, Cosachov and five other health professionals are in the dock – nurses Ricardo Almiron; Nancy Forlini and Mariano Perroni; psychologist Carlos Diaz and doctor Pedro Di Spagno.
An eighth person, nurse Gisella Dahiana Madrid, will be tried separately later this year.
They are charged with homicide and face up to 25 years in prison if convicted.
Mr Ferrari told the court at the start of their trial Diego spent the last days of his life in a ‘House of Horror’ after he left hospital and agreed to home care.
During a hard-hitting opening speech at the start of the trial Mr Ferrari held up a photo in the packed courtroom of the man regarded by many as the world’s best-ever footballer, lying on his back in bed with his bloated stomach exposed under a lifted-up black T-shirt, and said: “This is the way he died.”
The criminal investigation launched shortly after Maradona was found lifeless in bed was initially classified as a manslaughter probe.
It was reclassified as a homicide investigation following a damning report by a medical board which concluded Maradona’s care team acted “inadequately, deficiently and recklessly.”
A conviction on the charge the seven defendants are being tried on would carry a prison sentence of between eight and 25 years until Argentinian law if the health professionals under the microscope were found guilty of acting in a way they knew could lead to someone’s death but did nothing to avoid it.
Luque, who denies wrongdoing, broke down in tears days after Maradona’s shock death following a search of his home near Buenos Aires and claimed: “If I’m responsible for anything when it comes to Diego, it was loving him, caring for him, improving his life to the end and extending it.”
After his death it emerged Maradona had been buried without his diseased heart, which at 503 grams weighed almost double that of a normal heart for a man his age.
Doctor and journalist Nelson Castro said at the time part of the reason had been to prevent fans from stealing it.
The first court session was streamed live online but it was subsequently decided not to continue with that policy.
Maradona’s daughter Jana today told the court during her evidence her sisters Dalma and Gianinna had wanted to get their dad admitted to a clinic before his death but said Leopoldo Luque had rejected the idea.
