Maradona’s Lawyer Demands Investigation Into Death

Diego Maradona’s lawyer has accused medics of ‘criminal idiocy’ and demanded an investigation into the football legend’s death, as grieving fans filed past his coffin at the presidential palace in Argentina.

Matias Morla claimed the World Cup winner was left for 12 hours without aid before he died of a heart attack aged 60, just two weeks after he was discharged from hospital following surgery to remove a blood clot on his brain.

Morla also claimed it was ‘criminal idiocy’ that an ambulance took 30 minutes to arrive and vowed that the circumstances surrounding Maradona’s death would be ‘investigated to the end’.

Maradona’s body was taken to the presidential palace in an ambulance, where it is lying in state, covered in an Argentinian flag and his signature number 10 shirt. Thousands of fans streamed past Maradona’s body at the palace, clapping, pumping their fists and throwing flowers, flags and football shirts at the foot of the casket on the first of three days of national mourning.

Maradona’s family and closest friends came at dawn before the start of the public wake, before scuffles briefly broke out as crowds jostled to enter and police had to hold people back.

An autopsy report leaked to Argentine media said he died in his sleep after suffering heart failure, only two weeks after leaving hospital following surgery to remove a blood clot on his brain.

Medics also detected dilated cardiomyopathy, a medical condition in which the heart muscle becomes weakened and enlarged and cannot pump enough blood to the rest of the body.

His nephew Johnny Esposito was the last person to see him alive, according to the leaked report, before doctors with an appointment to see him went to his estate on Wednesday and found him unresponsive.

Maradona is survived by five children, including his daughters Dalma, 33, and Ganina, 31, by his first and only wife Claudia Villafane, 58, to whom he was married from 1984 to 2004.