No place for Diego to die
Cramped, bare room in rented house where Maradona spent his final days
THIS is the cramped makeshift bedroom Diego Maradona died in after he was unable to climb the stairs in his luxury house. The soccer legend was supposed to sleep in an upstairs en suite bedroom at the rented property. But the ground-floor playroom had to be converted, with a wardrobe dragged across a doorway for privacy, as he recovered from brain surgery. Maradona, who died at 60 last Wednesday from heart failure, had been using a portable orthopaedic loo at the house on the gated estate of San Andres, north of Buenos Aires. The lawyer of one of the nurses caring for Diego claimed on Tuesday he had hit his head in a fall last week but
DISMAL The room where Maradona spent his last days. Inset, with Dr Luque
had not been taken to hospital for checks.
Prosecutors , probing whether the Argentine legend’s death could have been avoided, searched the home and office of his personal physician Leopoldo Luque on Sunday.
He insisted: “If I’m responsible for anything when it comes to Diego, it was loving him, caring... improving his life to the end and extending it.”
Maradona’s daughters Jana, Dalma and Gianinna are said to have pointed the finger at Dr Luque during statements to investigators on Saturday.
Diego had reportedly been prescribed a cocktail of drugs including antidepressants and ant ipsychotics. Experts say the mixture of drugs could have stressed his heart. A key focus of the prosecution investigation is whether home care where he died was appropriate. Mario Baudry, the current boyfriend of Maradona’s ex- partner Veronica Ojeda, claimed that the World Cup winner’s death had been “avoidable”. He added: “The Monday before he died, Diego told Veronica he wanted to see her and she went to the house. “There wasn’t a doctor around.”