Maradona's death case resumes with fresh hearings

Six months after the closure of the first trial, today, a preliminary hearing will take place to determine the terms for a new trial in Argentina concerning the circumstances of Diego Maradona’s death in 2020.

The parties will meet in San Isidro (north of Buenos Aires) to agree on the modus operandi, hearings, and witnesses for the “second” trial against seven healthcare professionals, CE Report quotes ANSA.

The new trial is expected to begin on March 17, 2026.

Diego Maradona passed away at the age of 60 on November 25, 2020, due to a cardiorespiratory crisis and pulmonary edema during his recovery after neurosurgery. The trial aims to determine whether his death was inevitable, given his body was worn out by excesses and addiction, or if, on the contrary, there was fatal negligence, even deliberate, on the part of the medical professionals (doctor, psychiatrist, psychologist, nurses) who were supposed to care for Maradona.

The first trial was archived in May after about twenty hearings over two months and the testimony of 44 witnesses.

The case was closed amid a scandal: one of the three judges had, unbeknownst to anyone, collaborated on a documentary miniseries about the case. Since then, she has been removed from her position.

At Tuesday’s hearing, the defense lawyers will request that various appeals be examined, particularly invoking the principle of "ne bis in idem," which ensures that a person cannot be tried twice for the same crime.

Mario Baudry, the lawyer for Maradona’s former partner and mother of one of his children, Veronica Ojeda, predicts that "the defense lawyers will resort to delaying tactics to prolong" the procedure, "delaying the trial as much as possible."

According to him, the evidence presented in the first trial "confirms that there is indeed responsibility and that there will be convictions," he said.