One of Diego Maradona’s daughters learned of her father’s passing on the radio, she told court on Tuesday.

Jana Maradona also said that Diego’s chief medical adviser, Leopoldo Luque, convinced the family the star should be treated at home, rather than taken to rehab, after he underwent surgery for a subdural hematoma (bleeding between the skull and the brain) on November 2, 2020.

Jana is the youngest of the Argentine football superstar’s three recognized daughters. She was one of four witnesses who testified on Tuesday, the fifth day of the trial over the former footballer’s death.

“After the surgery they offered us two paths for recovery: a rehab clinic with a 24-hour watch or home care,” she said. 

“Luque was emphatic that sending him to a clinic was crazy. We turned to home care because the family doctor said it was better. I had no reason to distrust a doctor whom my dad loved.”

Jana visited her father twice while he was under home care, she added, finding him well the first time, but very swollen and in a bad mood the second time. 

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She recalled texting her half-sister Giannina to meet for lunch on the day Maradona died. Giannina insisted they also invite psychiatrist Agustina Cosachov to talk about their father’s treatment.

After several days passed without her father’s care team inviting the sisters to visit, she informed them that she would go on November 25. “I felt we were abandoning him,” she said.

En route, she received a text from a friend’s father offering his condolences. She assumed he’d heard some fake news and ignored it. Then came another text, this time from her cousin Jony, son of the star’s sister María Rosa, telling her to get to the house as soon as possible because her father had “gone into arrest.”

“I didn’t know what that meant, so I ignored it,” she said. “As we were arriving, the radio announced the news that Diego Maradona had died. When I stepped into the bedroom, I saw my father on the bed, already dead.”

Maradona ex-security head arrested

Diego Maradona’s former head of security, Julio Coria, was arrested on Tuesday for giving false testimony.

During the hearing, Coria said he had seen Cosachov perform CPR on Maradona. He had previously testified that this was done by him and nurse Dahiana Madrid. Neighbour and medical doctor Colin Campbell’s testimony coincided with this account.

Coria also denied that he had spoken to Luque regularly. However, he was then shown chats with Luque in which he referred to Maradona’s chief medic as “friend.” Coria insisted he had no recollection of the texs.

Fernando Burlando, the plaintiff’s lawyer, asked for Coria to be arrested for giving false testimony. Judges agreed with his claim that the former security lead had lied under oath.