No alcohol, drugs in Maradona

BUENOS AIRES • Argentina football legend Diego Maradona was suffering from liver, kidney and cardiovascular disorders but there were no signs of alcohol or narcotics consumption in his autopsy, the public prosecutor said on Wednesday.

The World Cup-winning captain from Mexico 1986 died of a heart attack on Nov 25 at the age of 60.

The public prosecutor in San Isidro, a northern suburb of the capital Buenos Aires, published the results of Maradona’s autopsy late on Tuesday night.

It was ordered as part of an investigation into his death to see if there was any negligence or recklessness in the healthcare he was provided. At the end of his life he was suffering from a variety of illnesses including liver cirrhosis, heart disease and kidney failure.

He had also battled cocaine and alcohol addictions.

“What’s come out of the laboratory analysis is as important as what hasn’t, which simply confirms that Maradona was given psychotropic drugs but no medicine for heart disease,” one of the investigators told the Telam press agency.

Psychiatrist Agustina Cosachov and heart surgeon Leopoldo Luque are under investigation as they were treating him before his death.

A first autopsy conducted the day Maradona died found he had suffered from liquid in the lungs, with acute heart failure brought on by a disease of the heart muscles that makes it harder to pump blood. His heart was twice the normal weight.

He had also undergone an operation for bleeding in the brain on Nov 3, just four days after his 60th birthday.

A judge last week ruled that Maradona’s body cannot be cremated but conserved in case DNA is needed at a later date for use in paternity suits or other cases.

REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE