Was Maradona murdered? DAVID JONES, who met the Argentine superstar, has been fiercely sceptical of his familys bid to blame his death on negligent medics. But after hearing new evidence, hes no longer so sure...

A quarter of a century ago, when Diego Maradona was (supposedly) recovering from cocaine addiction in Cuba at the invitation of his friend Fidel Castro, Argentinas genius and arch-cheat granted me an unforgettable audience.

Though he was massively overweight and had narrowly survived a near-fatal, drug-induced seizure, copious supplies of white powder were still being smuggled into his chalet. Yet, deluded as ever, he assured the world of his invincibility.

If Maradona does not stop taking drugs he will surely die, he declared, hubristically referring to himself in the third person like the emperor Julius Caesar.

And Diego Maradona does not intend to go to heaven with just one Beatle [John Lennon was then the only one to have died]. Maradona will only ascend there when all four Beatles are waiting to meet him.

Crazy. Pure crazy. And yet this week, five years after his death, the madness that always surrounded Maradona – who consorted with the Italian Mafia, took a 15-year-old Cuban girl as his mistress and bragged of bedding 6,000 women (you can add a zero to that, laughs a friend) yet considered himself a global statesman – is back again from beyond the grave.

In a court case that is becoming more sensational by the day, the seven medics caring for him when he died at home of a heart attack, in November 2020, are charged with his manslaughter. 

But prosecutors claim their maltreatment went way beyond neglect. They accuse his home hospitalisation team of plotting his murder.

Given his gargantuan excesses, it is something of a miracle that the worlds finest – and most egomaniacal – footballer survived until shortly after his 60th birthday in 2020, when he suffered a fatal heart attack while recovering from a brain-bleed operation.

Diego Maradona (right) shakes hands with Leopoldo Luque (left) two weeks before his death in November 2020

Arguably the greatest footballer to have ever lived, Diego Maradona (pictured with his ex-wife Claudia lived a far from healthy life off the pitch

Maradona lifts the World Cup trophy in 1986 after leading Argentina through a tournament where they overcame England in the quarter-final thanks to his infamous hand of God

By then he had swapped cocaine for beer, wine and rum and he retained the appetite, as well as the ego, of a Roman emperor, so it seemed reasonable to assume his death to have been self-inflicted. 

But in his homeland the scales never fell from peoples eyes. 

While the little bull became Englands bete-noire after the infamous hand of God goal that eliminated our national team from the 1986 World Cup, when Argentina went on to win the tournament he returned home a living legend, enhancing his ghetto-cred in those benighted, post-Falklands War times, with his self-styled far-Left views.

When a legend dies it cant be their own fault. Someone else must be held responsible and brought to account.

And so, this week, I sat in a stifling courtroom in San Isidro, a handsome colonial town an hour north of Buenos Aires, and listened as a phalanx of testosterone-charged lawyers tried to pin Maradonas death on the seven hapless medics.

Led by his publicity-loving personal physician Dr Leopoldo Luque and including a psychiatrist and psychologist who were trying to wean him off booze, they are all accused of homicide by negligence, a charge similar to involuntary manslaughter in England and Wales.

The plaintiffs are Maradonas sisters, three of his countless exes and their offspring (including his belatedly acknowledged illegitimate daughter Jana and son Diego Junior) and when the case opened, the prosecution immediately upped the ante.

Brandishing a photo of his hideously bloated corpse before the three unlikely-looking judges – a cadaverous Christopher Lee lookalike flanked by two trout-pouts – chief prosecutor Patricio Ferrari barked: Maradona died like this!

Maradona pictured with his two daughters, Gianinna (left) and Dalma (centre right), and ex-wife Claudia Villafane in 2008

Dalma (left) Giannina (right) were present at the San Isidro courthouse earlier this week with Maradonas former medical staff accused of negligence 

Those who say they didnt know what was happening to Diego are lying to your face! On November 25, [2020], the defendants deliberately and cruelly decided he should die.

The plaintiffs lawyer, Fernando Burlando, went further, depicting an inhumane and effective plan whereby the far-from-magnificent seven willingly neglected their duties with the aim of causing death.

Maradonas carers had switched his meds as if they were experimenting on an animal. Lest his inference wasnt clear, he added: Its clear that Maradona was murdered.

Read from afar, it sounded like an outlandish exaggeration.

Listening to the evidence unfold this week, however, I began to countenance a chilling possibility: that the scapegoats Argentina desperately needs to find to protect their unofficial patron saints reputation really do exist. 

This suspicion grew when, away from the courtroom, a Maradona family lawyer told me he is fighting to retrieve a £54million fortune the star secretly salted away in Jersey and other offshore havens.

Ill return later to this intriguing, and hitherto unknown, twist to the story. 

Back in court, meanwhile, expert medical witnesses had been giving damning descriptions of the conditions at the soulless, modern villa rented for Maradonas recovery, in a gated complex on the outskirts of Buenos Aires.

Jana Maradona, another of the footballers daughters, was pictured arriving at court earlier this week

Veronica Ojeda, an ex-girlfriend of Maradonas, spoke to the press outside the Argentinian courthouse

Colin Campbell, the first doctor to enter Maradonas ground-floor bedroom after he died, noted the absence of basic post-surgery medical equipment such as a defibrillator, and the poor state of hygiene. 

And pathologist Dr Mauricio Casinelli, who conducted the post-mortem examination (assisted by five other doctors because of Maradonas importance) declared it likely that, given the appropriate care, Argentinas unofficial patron saint would still be among us.

Though he suffered a fatal heart attack, Dr Casinelli said his autopsy proved his death was not sudden at all.

In truth, it was entirely predictable and caused by oedema – water retention that caused huge bloating yet apparently went undetected by his carers for at least four days.

Bristling with indignation, he said it could have been alleviated if his medics had put him on a salt-free diet. Instead, they fed him with sandwiches and crackers. 

Other witnesses have claimed Maradona was also supplied with beer and wine from a fridge beside his bed despite his alcoholism.

Though several people were in the house on the day he died, Dr Casinelli said he must have spent up to 12 hours dying in agony worse than that suffered by patients in the last throes of terminal cancer.

He had deduced this from the blood clots in Maradonas heart, which was double the normal size and weighed 1.11lbs. (I later worked out that this is about three ounces more than the footballs he once dribbled.) 

The Argentinian footballing legend died on 25 November 2020 after suffering a heart attack 

Maradona played 91 times for Argentina in a career spanning 17 years before going onto manage his country between 2008 and 2010

Maradona is enamored in his native Argentina, with murals of the former Napoli man painted around the country

Removed from his body before he was buried in a private cemetery, for fear that it might be stolen by ghoulish fans, this inflated organ remains locked in a laboratory safe.

As the grisly evidence wore on, illustrated by slides that turned the stomach, it posed a rather obvious question: assuming Maradonas squalid death was no accident, who might stand to benefit from it, and why?

For the first five days of the trial nobody had deigned to address the matter of a motive, but on Thursday, when Luis Ramirez – the lawyer for Maradonas son Diego Junior – rose to his feet, a possible answer emerged.

Ramirez appealed for two of Maradonas five sisters – Rita and Claudia – to be dismissed as plaintiffs because they are also embroiled in a civil case over his estate, due to begin behind closed doors in Buenos Aires on April 8.

Given the chaos that always surrounded his business affairs, this second lawsuit is enormously complex.

However, in his later years Maradona signed the rights to his lucrative brand – which endorses everything from noodles to gambling machines – over to Sattvica, a company set up by his business manager Matias Morla and Morlas brother-in-law Maximilian Pomargo. 

According to Argentine Press reports, the pair planned to use it as the platform for a money-spinning project called Maradona Universe.

This would see Diego-themed bars, restaurants and theatre shows open around the world, and four new Maradona museums, in Naples, Tokyo, Havana and Buenos Aires, where his embalmed body would be exhibited when he died. 

Maradona had struggled with drug addiction, obesity, and alcoholism for decades and brushed close with death on prior occasions 

The hearse carrying the casket of Maradona drives to the cemetery in Buenos Aires, Argentina, November 26, 2020

Aerial view of the burial of late Argentine football legend Diego Armando Maradona at the Jardin Bella Vista cemetery, in Buenos Aires province, on November 26, 2020

This grandiose vision is yet to be realised, but 21 Maradona-branded ventures and products were registered in Argentina at the time he died, with 105 more in the offing and a further 120 earning royalties in other countries.

However, daughters Dalma, 37, and Gianinna, 35, have claimed their father was tricked into signing his rights to Sattvica while under the influence of drugs and hired calligraphy experts to analyse his signature. 

Morla, for his part, claims to have 640 audio and video messages proving Maradonas consented clear-headedly to the contract – adding that the agreement spared him from succumbing to overtures from a Chinese businesswoman.

It remains to be seen how much of this story unravels in the impending civil case, in which several of Maradonas heirs accuse Morla and Pomargo of fraudulently depriving them of their share of the branding rights and demand redress.

But when attorney Ramirez called – vainly – for the sisters to be excluded from the manslaughter case, and others backed his appeal, the lid was blown clean off this Pandoras box.

Felix Linfante, who represents Maradonas illegitimate daughter Jana, told the three judges how dark beliefs and rumours were swirling around the trial.

Word had it, he told the court, that, having acquired the rights to his name, the footballers entourage – led by 45-year-old Morla – had good reason to want him dead.

It was an astonishing allegation. Before the trials scheduled end in July, the former manager – already a hate-figure trolled mercilessly by Maradonas adorers – might have the opportunity to rebut it; and of course he is not on trial.

Diego Maradona with his ex-wife Claudia and daughters Ganina and Dalma during a holiday in Seville in 1992

Diego Maradona and his daughters Dalma Nerea (left) and Giannina Dinora (right) are overcome with emotion during an event in Maradonas honor at the La Bombonera stadium of Boca Juniors soccer team on Saturday, 10 November 2001

 Yet prosecutors and plaintiffs place him, his sister Vanessa Morla, and Pomargo – to whom they refer as Clan Maradona – at the heart of their case.

They suggest this trusted inner circle were instrumental in appointing the accused medical team, persuading the family to accept the home-hospital idea contrary to the advice of his clinicians, and choosing the villa where he died.

Its all intriguing stuff. So how does the plot stretch 7,000 miles to the Channel Islands?

Immediately after Maradonas passing, he was reported to have died a relative pauper worth just £386,000. The one modest house he owned plus other belongings such as his car were auctioned to pay his debts.

He had undoubtedly hit the skids when I met him in Cuba. Having snorted, drank and cavorted his way through his millions, and been roundly fleeced by his old entourage, he was then relying on Castros charity to stay in a shabby hotel-cum-clinic.

By 2018, however, he was boasting to friends that he was extremely wealthy again, apparently by dint of his generous earnings when coaching in Belarus, Mexico and the United Arab Emirates. 

His close friend Mariano Israelit told me this week that Maradona left an estate worth £77million. He is said to have left three wills, the contents of which are unknown, and it is unclear whether any of them is valid.

Behind the scenes, therefore, his factionalised family – which has grown with the acknowledgement of three Cuban offspring the year before his death, bringing the number of known children to eight – employed lawyers to track down the missing Maradona millions. 

Maradona attends the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia Round of 16 match between France and Argentina at the Kazan Arena

Maradona shows off a new pair of sunglasses given to him by his daughter as a fathers day gift during a press conference at Loftus Versefeld Stadium in 2010

Among these bounty hunters is attorney Mario Baudry, who is now entwined with Maradonas last-but-one girlfriend Veronica Ojeda and at the manslaughter trial represents her son by the footballer, Dieguito Fernando, aged 12.

This week, Baudry claimed to have uncovered proof of an estate worth around £54million, all but £3.86million of which is stashed, as yet beyond reach, in Jersey.

However, he claimed that the remainder of the fortune, which had been banked in places such as Switzerland, the UAE, and the Seychelles, had been recovered.

His next move will be to win Deguito Fernando a share of the branding rights.

To give you an idea of their value, the video of Diegos second goal against England in 1986 (a mesmerising virtuoso voted the Goal of the Century) has had 60million views and has been watched even more since he died, he tells me, saying it earns royalties for the estate – egregiously controlled by his manager, he contends – with every click.

A dizzying week in Buenos Aires ended with another startling claim from a lawyer involved in the trial – only this time in an off-the-record briefing.

According to this source, there is good reason to believe that the truth behind Maradonas death was covered up by the Argentinian government. 

For at the time, the country had a Left-wing Peronist president, Alberto Fernandez, and it would have been disastrous if Maradona, with his Che Guevara tattoo and cosiness with Cuba, was seen to have met with a less-than-heroic end.

Oh what a circus, oh what show, to borrow the lyrics of the musical Dont Cry For Me Argentina. So how will it all play out? Will the medical team be absolved or struck off and sent to jail – facing anything up to 25 years?

Gauging by the judges draconian reaction this week when Maradonas security guard Julius Coria perjured himself by denying a rather too cosy friendship with medical-team chief Luque, their prospects seem mighty grim.

Having arrived in court as a witness, the burly Coria, the only staff member with the guts and gumption to attempt mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, was arrested on the spot and marched from the court in handcuffs.

So, Argentina had her first scapegoat. But with ferment rising over the medical murder that prematurely condemned Diego Maradona to a meeting with two of the Beatles, I predict there will be more come the summer when this grotesque show trial ends.