logo
Judge in Maradona negligence case resigns amid scandal

Judge in Maradona negligence case resigns amid scandal

Yahoo7 hours ago

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — The Argentine judge embroiled in the scandal that led to the mistrial in the case of seven health professionals accused of negligence in Diego Maradona's death resigned Tuesday after a grand jury announced it would continue a process to consider her removal.
Julieta Makintach, who withdrew from the case because of a documentary in which she appears as one of its lead characters, resigned as a judge in a Buenos Aires provincial court.
'I present my resignation with serenity, without renouncing the right to exercise my defense in the appropriate arenas,' Makintach wrote in a letter sent to the district authorities.
The judge is on leave and will have to wait for the Buenos Aires authorities to accept her resignation.
Maradona, who led Argentina to the World Cup title in 1986, died on Nov. 25, 2020 while in home hospitalization on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, days after undergoing surgery for a hematoma that formed between his skull and brain. He was 60.
Seven healthcare professionals were brought to trial for allegedly failing to provide adequate care.
___
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Mississippi set to execute state's longest-serving death row inmate
Mississippi set to execute state's longest-serving death row inmate

Yahoo

time2 hours ago

  • Yahoo

Mississippi set to execute state's longest-serving death row inmate

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi's longest-serving death row inmate is set to be executed Wednesday nearly five decades after he kidnapped and killed a bank loan officer's wife in a violent ransom scheme. Richard Gerald Jordan, a 79-year-old Vietnam veteran who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, is scheduled to receive a lethal injection at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman. He is one of several people on Mississippi's death row suing the state over its three-drug execution protocol, which they claim is inhumane. Jordan would be the third person executed in the state in the last 10 years; the most recent execution was in December 2022. His execution comes a day after a man was executed in Florida in what is shaping up to be a year with the most executions since 2015. Jordan was sentenced to death in 1976 for killing and kidnapping Edwina Marter, a mother of two young children, earlier that year. As of the beginning of the year, Jordan is one of 22 people across the country sentenced for crimes in the 1970s who are still on death row, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Eric Marter, who was 11 when his mother was killed, said neither he, his brother, nor his father will attend the execution, but other family members will be there. 'It should have happened a long time ago,' he said of the execution. 'I'm not really interested in giving him the benefit of the doubt.' Mississippi Supreme Court records show that in January 1976, Jordan called the Gulf National Bank in Gulfport, Mississippi, and asked to speak with a loan officer. After he was told Charles Marter could speak to him, he hung up. He then looked up the Marters' home address in a telephone book and kidnapped Edwina Marter. According to court records, Jordan took her to a forest and shot her to death before calling her husband, claiming she was safe and demanding $25,000. 'He needs to be punished,' Eric Marter said. The execution ends Jordan's decades-long court process that included four trials and numerous appeals. On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a petition that claimed he was denied due process rights. 'He was never given what, for a long time, the law has entitled him to, which is a mental health professional that is independent of the prosecution and can assist his defense,' said lawyer Krissy Nobile, the director of Mississippi's Office of Capital Post-Conviction Counsel, who represents Jordan. 'Because of that, his jury never got to hear about his Vietnam experiences.' A recent petition asking Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves for clemency echoed Nobile's claim. It argues Jordan developed PTSD after serving three back-to-back tours in the Vietnam War, which could have been a factor in his crime. 'His war service, his war trauma, was considered not relevant in his murder trial,' said Franklin Rosenblatt, the president of the National Institute of Military Justice, who wrote the petition on Jordan's behalf. 'We just know so much more than we did 10 years ago, and certainly during Vietnam, about the effect of war trauma on the brain and how that affects ongoing behaviors.' Eric Marter said he doesn't buy that argument. 'I know what he did. He wanted money, and he couldn't take her with him. And he — so he did what he did,' he said.

Brazil confronts military officers accused of plotting a coup in historic trial
Brazil confronts military officers accused of plotting a coup in historic trial

Washington Post

time3 hours ago

  • Washington Post

Brazil confronts military officers accused of plotting a coup in historic trial

SAO PAULO — When Lt. Col. Mauro Cid arrived at Brazil's Supreme Court on Tuesday to testify against his onetime ally, former Defense Minister Gen. Walter Braga Netto, he did not salute the senior officer. It was a departure from military protocol that underscored how the country's once hugely popular military has been divided and roiled by scandal as Brazil tries an explosive case in which top military officers are accused of helping former President Jair Bolsonaro attempt a coup to remain in power after losing an election.

Brazil confronts military officers accused of plotting a coup in historic trial
Brazil confronts military officers accused of plotting a coup in historic trial

Associated Press

time3 hours ago

  • Associated Press

Brazil confronts military officers accused of plotting a coup in historic trial

SAO PAULO (AP) — When Lt. Col. Mauro Cid arrived at Brazil's Supreme Court on Tuesday to testify against his onetime ally, former Defense Minister Gen. Walter Braga Netto, he did not salute the senior officer. It was a departure from military protocol that underscored how the country's once hugely popular military has been divided and roiled by scandal as Brazil tries an explosive case in which top military officers are accused of helping former President Jair Bolsonaro attempt a coup to remain in power after losing an election. Analysts said that the two men's appearance in a civilian court marked a historic departure from the impunity senior military officers have enjoyed since the country underwent two decades of military rule. 'Putting a colonel up against a general levels the playing the field and signals that for the justice system, all defendants are equal,' said Lucas Figueiredo, the author of several books about Brazil's dictatorship. 'The truth will prevail.' Accusations of a coup Cid, a former aide-de-camp to Bolsonaro who signed a plea bargain to cooperate with authorities, has already testified that Braga Netto took part in a meeting in November 2022 during which military officials discussed plans to stop current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva from taking office. Braga Netto is a close ally of Bolsonaro who also served as the former president's chief-of-staff and his 2022 running mate. The officers are standing trial alongside Bolsonaro, several other officers, and a few civilians. They face five charges including attempting to stage a coup, involvement in an armed criminal organization, attempted violent abolition of the democratic rule of law, aggravated damage and degredation of listed heritage. A verdict is expected by the end of 2025. Cid says that in the days after Bolsonaro lost to Lula, he was called to Braga Netto's office and handed a bag of cash to distribute to Bolsonaro supporters camped outside the military headquarters. Braga Netto denies the account and calls Cid a traitor. The two men were summoned to the Supreme Court on Tuesday for a confrontation, a step in Brazilian legal procedure in which the judge and both parties can interrogate witnesses about discrepancies in their testimony. The examination was conducted behind closed doors by order of Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who is chair the coup probe and did not provide more details about the decision. Brazilian law allows closed court hearings when matters of national security or deeply personal matters are involved. Braga Netto arrived at the court in the country's capital of Brasilia from his jail cell in Rio de Janeiro, where he has been detained for obstructing investigations since December. A staffer of the Supreme Court who observed the testimony told The Associated Press that both Braga Netto and Cid mostly stuck to their contradictory versions of events and avoided even looking at each other despite sitting opposite one another. The staffer spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to brief the media. In a heated exchange, the former defense minister shot back that Cid was a 'liar,' said Braga Netto's lawyer, José Luis Oliveira. Moraes' decision to call both men for questioning at the same time signaled the judge's lack of confidence in their testimonies, legal experts and officials said. Brazil's military has long enjoyed impunity The fact that the two men appeared in a civilian court at all was a break from decades of impunity enjoyed by Brazilian senior officers. No one in Brazil has been sent to jail on charges related to the 1964-1985 military dictatorship, unlike in neighboring countries Argentina and Chile. And Bolsonaro, despite facing a tangle of serious legal charges, remains the face of the country's opposition to President Lula. The last Brazilian general to be jailed was Argemiro de Assis Brasil, who was arrested in 1964 for opposing the coup d'etat in which the military seized power. Since the beginning of the proceedings, members of the military establishment have claimed the Supreme Court trial is an embarrassment to the armed forces. 'Such questioning doesn't help the armed forces,' said Gen. Roberto Peternelli, a former congressman affiliated with Bolsonaro's Liberal Party. 'In my perspective, it ends up harming the country.' The accused sought to avoid civilian court by seeking a trial at the country's Superior Military Tribunal, where legal experts say they were more likely to find sympathy. The military court, which handles only a few dozen cases a year, refused the cases. 'Members of the military court understood that, though perpetrated by military personnel, these are not military crimes,' said Alexandre Knopfholz, a law professor at UniCuritiba. Millions of Brazilians have seen the case play out on TV over the past two years, from raids in which federal police arrest suspects and seize documents to court testimony. Still, some experts doubt that Cid and Braga Netto would end up serving out full sentences behind bars, even if they are found guilty. 'This is the middle of the probe. We should not forget that every coup-mongering military man in Brazilian history was pardoned,' said Fabio Victor, author of a book about the links between the military and politics after Brazil's transition to democracy in 1985. But he acknowledged: 'The fact that generals have become defendants for an attempted coup does show some evolution.' ____ Hughes reported from Rio de Janeiro.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store