Neurosurgeon Leopoldo Luque said on Sunday (November 29) he will not be held responsible for the death of Diego Armando Maradona, after Argentine justice officials seized medical files from his office as part of their investigation into the recent death of the soccer star.
”If you ask me, I’m a neurosurgeon and my job ended. I was done with him,” Luque told reporters at his home.
When asked if another doctor had been seeing Maradona, Luque, said: “They were still seeing him but it would be good if you ask the other doctors. Because, as I said, I am not responsible for everything. I am responsible – because there is outrageous talk I let him out – but I was the one who took Diego to the hospital! Where did they lose sight of that?”
Maradona died at age 60 on Wednesday (November 25) after a heart attack.
The search order was requested by prosecutors in the affluent Buenos Aires suburb San Isidro and signed by a local judge, according to a statement issued by the prosecutor’s office.
The prosecutor’s office provided no information on what prompted the investigation.
Maradona had struggled for years with substance abuse issues.
”There is no medical negligence. Not even what they say about his illness. Diego had a fortuitous event that caused a heart attack to a patient with his characteristics, which is the most common thing for a patient to die like that. Regrettably, it was a fact that could’ve happened before or afterwards,” said Luque.
Maradona’s lawyer, Matias Moria, on Thursday (November 26) said he would ask for a full investigation of the circumstances of the soccer legend’s death, criticizing what he said was a slow response by emergency service.
“The ambulance took more than half an hour to arrive, which was a criminal idiocy,” Matias said on Thursday in a Twitter post.
(Production: Miguel Lo Bianco, Juan Bustamante, Geraldine Downer)