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Diego Maradona’s surgeon responded at the start of a manslaughter investigation saying that he did “everything he could, even the impossible” for an “unmanageable” patient.
Hours earlier, prosecutors in San Isidro, near Buenos Aires, said they were investigating Leopoldo Luque, while Argentine television showed police raiding the doctor’s office and home.
Subsequently, a statement from the Prosecutor’s Office said that they had begun to analyze the material gathered and clarified that “for the moment no decisions have been made on the procedural situation of any person.”
The investigation was sparked by concerns raised by Maradona’s daughters Dalma, Gianinna and Jana about the treatment she received for her heart condition at her home in Tigre, north of Buenos Aires, judicial sources said.
Maradona died of a heart attack on Wednesday at age 60, and was buried Thursday in the Jardín de Paz cemetery on the outskirts of the Argentine capital.
“Our investigations are ongoing, we are speaking with witnesses, including members of Maradona’s family,” said a source close to the San Isidro investigation.
“The clinic had recommended that he go elsewhere to be hospitalized, but the family decided otherwise.
“His daughters signed to be released from the hospital,” said a relative, on condition of anonymity.
Later that day, Mr. Luque, who is not related to Maradona’s former Argentine teammate of the same name, gave an emotional televised press conference.
“Do you want to know what I am responsible for?” the 39-year-old doctor asked between sobs.
“For having loved him, for having cared for him, for having extended his life, for having improved it to the end.”
Mr. Luque said he did “everything he could, even the impossible” and considered himself a “friend” of Maradona and saw him “as a father, not as a patient.”
Mr. Luque had posted a photograph of himself with Maradona when the former player left the hospital on November 12, eight days after the doctor operated to remove a blood clot from the brain.
Maradona returned to his home in Tigre where he received 24-hour medical attention and was able to remain close to his daughters.
“I should have gone to a rehab center. I didn’t want to,” said Luque, who called Maradona “ungovernable.”
‘Nothing to hide’
He said he did not know why there was no defibrillator in the event of a heart attack at Maradona’s home in Tigre, and made it clear that home care was not his responsibility.
“I am a neurosurgeon,” Luque said.
“I am the person who has been taking care of him. I am proud of everything I have done. I have nothing to hide. I am at the disposal of justice.”
Maradona’s lawyer, Matías Morla, had requested an investigation into allegations that ambulances took more than half an hour to reach the soccer star’s home in response to an emergency call on the day of his death.
Luque said an ambulance should have been parked outside.
“A psychiatrist had asked that there always be an ambulance in front of his house. I don’t know who is responsible for not having an ambulance,” he said.
Diego “was very sad, he wanted to be alone, and it is not because he did not love his daughters, his family or those around him,” Luque said. “It was brave.”
A judicial source said no official complaint has yet been filed.
“The case began because it is about a person who died at home and no one signed his death certificate. It does not mean that there are suspicions or irregularities,” said the source, requesting to remain anonymous.
A preliminary post-mortem report established that Maradona died in his sleep at noon Wednesday of “acute lung edema and chronic heart failure.”
The Prosecutor’s Office is awaiting the results of the toxicological tests on Maradona’s body.
The three prosecutors working on the case have requested his medical records, as well as recordings from the neighborhood security cameras.
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