By Oyinlola Awonuga (The New Diplomat’s Entertainment, Fashion and Sports Desk)
Police in Argentina stormed the house of Diego Maradona’s personal doctor on Sunday amid reports the legend’s death is being treated as manslaughter.
According to reports, the searches of personal physician Leopoldo Luque’s property began this morning – four days after the 60-year-old died at his Buenos Aires home.
Prosecutors behind the order, said to have been sanctioned by a judge, are trying to establish whether the football legend was the victim of medical negligence.
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The dramatic twist in the probe into Maradona’s death followed overnight reports he had rowed with personal physician Leopoldo Luque in the days before he suffered heart failure last Wednesday.
Luque was at his home while the search on the outskirts of Buenos Aires takes place.
Local TV stations are broadcasting images of police entering Luque’s clinic.
The searches were ordered after Maradona’s daughters Dalma and Giannina gave statements on Saturday and questioned whether the medication their father was receiving was appropriate.
Argentinian media are reporting Luque could be questioned as an ‘imputado’, someone who is under official investigation on suspicion of possible mala praxis or negligence, rather than a simple witness.
There is no suggestion at this stage he will be charged with any crime at this stage of the probe.
Maradona’s lawyer Matias Morla last week demanded a top-level probe into the emergency response to the retired footballer’s death.
Matias Morla said the first ambulance took more than half an hour to reach the rented house north of Buenos Aires where the former Naples and Barcelona star suffered heart failure. He called the delay a “criminal idiocy.”
Mr Morla also complained Maradona had not received any medical checks in the 12 hours before he died, appearing to heap more pressure on the former footballer’s personal physician Leopoldo Luque.
It later emerged the first ambulance took 11 minutes to reach the private San Andres gated estate near Buenos Aires Maradona moved to after leaving hospital on November 11 following his brain blood clot operation.
On Saturday, it emerged Maradona’s nurse had admitted she lied about an early-morning check-up on him.
The sensational confession added more mystery to the circumstances surrounding his untimely death.
Initial reports pointed to a 24-year-old nephew who was staying with him at the San Andres home being the last person to see him alive over breakfast the day Diego died.
He was said to have told his relative: “I’m not feeling well” before going back to bed and dying in his sleep before investigators were told he had never got up on Wednesday to eat anything.
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