Purported underage girlfriend of Maradona testifies in trafficking case
Buenos Aires, Nov 18 (EFE).- A Cuban woman who says she was in a relationship with the-then-40-year-old Diego Maradona at the age of 16 gave testimony to an Argentine court Thursday in a human trafficking case against associates of the late soccer icon.
Mavys Alvarez, now 37, told a Spanish-language television network in the United States that she met Maradona (1960-2020) in 2000 while he was in Cuba undergoing treatment for his cocaine habit.
Video has emerged of Maradona and Alvarez lying on a bed.
The star ultimately insisted the teenager accompany him to Argentina for breast augmentation surgery, Alvarez said in a multi-part interview with America TeVe.
Alvarez arrived in Buenos Aires last week to appear as a witness in a human trafficking case brought against Maradona’s former agent, Guillermo Coppola, and four other members of the soccer legend’s entourage.
The court has yet to rule on Alvarez’s petition to join the prosecution as an additional plaintiff.
“The chain of responsibility starts with Cuba,” Alvarez’s attorney, Gaston Marano, said Thursday outside the courthouse. “We have a head of state (Fidel Castro) who gave the loan of a 16-year-old girl to anyone who asks if he happens to be Maradona.”
“Then we have immigration officials in Argentina who in 2001 allowed a minor to enter without the necessary documentation,” the lawyer said.
“And we also have a doctor who carried out a surgical operation without any check. The pre-surgery for Mavys was done in the hotel, where she was a prisoner. They told her she couldn’t go out because Maradona’s family was on another floor of that same hotel and they didn’t want them to see her,” Marano said, referring to the star’s then-wife, Claudia Villafañe, and the couple’s daughters, Dalma and Gianinna, who were 14 and 12, respectively, at the time. EFE sam/dr
