Diego Maradona’s carer crushed sleeping pills into his beer so he wasn’t a nuisance at night and he was given alcohol on-demand at 9am in the months before he died, investigators in Argentina are told
- Ongoing prosecution probe into Diego Maradona’s death has heard about his battles with alcohol during the final months of his life
- One of Maradona’s carers crushed sleeping pills into his beer to keep him calm at night, investigators were told
- If the former footballer asked for alcohol early in the morning, he was given it
- His relationship with alcohol prior to his death was described as ‘complicated’
- One of his aides said Maradona’s mental health deteriorated so much he was caught ‘having a phone conversation but without a phone in his hand’
One of Diego Maradona’s carers crushed sleeping pills into his beer so he wasn’t a nuisance at night, investigators have been told.
The soccer icon was also given alcohol early in the morning if he asked for it, a woman who visited him at the homes he stayed at before and after his brain hospital op has claimed.
Griselda Morel, an educational psychologist who worked with Diego’s eight-year son Dieguito Fernando, told prosecutors: ‘If he got up at 9am and asked for beer he was given it.’
Prosecutors in Argentina are continuing their investigation into the death of Diego Maradona, here pictured with his physician Leopoldo Luque (left) and have heard about his final months
Maradona passed away in November last year, sparking a wave of mourning around the world
Maradona was one of the most gifted footballers of all time, lifting the World Cup in 1986
She added: ‘One of his custodians crushed tablets he was taking and put in his beer so he didn’t cause a fuss at night.’
Morel described Maradona’s relationship with alcohol as ‘complicated’ in the months before his November 25 death, saying he was drinking beer and wine.
And she told investigators, in a statement leaked to the Argentinian press, the former Napoli and Barcelona player’s mental health was getting so bad that one of his aides caught him one day ‘talking on the phone in his room without a phone in his hand.’
Morel, who accompanied Dieguito when he visited his dad at home and spent time with Maradona at his rented home near Buenos Aires shortly after he left hospital before his shock death, claimed: ‘The last time I saw him Diego complained the bathroom was upstairs and they bathed him with a hose.
‘He told us he had sacked one of his nurses because he had stolen money from him.’
New footage of Maradona in the days before he died surfaced for the first time this month
Morel was questioned as part of the ongoing prosecution probe into Diego’s death.
Investigators are trying to establish if he was the victim of medical negligence.
Maradona’s personal physician Leopoldo Luque, whose home and office were searched last November, is one of the five people who have been placed under official investigation.
On Friday experts are due to start analysing the two mobile phones confiscated from his bedroom at his rented home in the search for information on his last conversations.
Photos published at the start of December showed Diego had died in a cramped makeshift bedroom.
The small ground-floor playroom had a wardrobe doubling up as a stopgap door to give the soccer legend a minimum of privacy.
Maradona’s mental health deteriorated significantly towards the end of his life, the investigation heard as prosecutors try and establish whether there was any medical negligence
Thousands of mourners packed the streets of Buenos Aires for Maradona’s funeral
He was supposed to sleep in an upstairs en-suite bedroom which had been prepared for him after his daughter Jana signed the £12,000 three-month rental contract on the house shortly before her dad left hospital.
But the ground-floor playroom at the property ended up being transformed into a substitute bedroom because of the difficulty he had getting up stairs following his brain blood clot op.
The soccer legend’s ex-girlfriend insisted shortly before his subdural haematoma was discovered that he needed urgent treatment for his ‘real’ problem of alcohol addiction.
Napoli pay tribute to their hero with a banner reading ‘Napoli swears to you eternal love’
Thousands gathered outside Napoli’s Stadio San Paolo to leave tributes to their idol
Rocio Oliva, who spent six years with the recovering drug addict and came close to marrying him before their split at the end of 2018, told an Argentinian radio station before his shock death: ‘What’s happening here is simple. You can keep him in hospital three or four days and get him better by hydrating him and giving him vitamins but that’s not the solution.
‘Diego takes sleeping pills, but here Diego’s problem is alcohol and it’s well known.
‘Diego is still drinking and whoever says he isn’t is a liar.
‘He needs to be treated for his alcohol addiction.’
Last week Mario Baudry, a lawyer acting for Dieguito Fernando, said he feared Maradona ‘hangers-on’ could have pilfered much of the multi-millionaire’s estimated £75million fortune.