BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) – Mavys Alvarez, a Cuban lady who had a relationship with late soccer star Diego Maradona 20 years in the past, advised a information convention on Monday that the Argentine participant had raped her when she was a teen and “stolen her childhood.”
Alvarez, now 37, gave testimony final week to an Argentine Ministry of Justice courtroom that’s investigating her allegations of trafficking towards Maradona’s former entourage, linked to occasions when she was 16.
Maradona, extensively thought of one of many best ever soccer stars, died a 12 months in the past on Nov. 25, 2020.
The criticism pertains to a journey Alvarez took to Argentina with Maradona in 2001, when he was round 40 and he or she was 16.
Alvarez mentioned that she first met the soccer star shortly earlier than the journey, when he was in Cuba to endure drug habit remedy.
At a information convention in Buenos Aires, Alvarez mentioned Maradona had raped her within the clinic in Havana the place he was staying, whereas her mom was within the subsequent room.
“He covers my mouth, he rapes me, I do not need to give it some thought an excessive amount of,” Alvarez mentioned.
“I ended being a woman, all my innocence was stolen from me. It is onerous. You cease dwelling the harmless issues {that a} woman of that age has to expertise.”
Matias Morla, Maradona’s lawyer earlier than his dying, didn’t reply to a request for remark. Reuters couldn’t establish different authorized representatives for Maradona within the case.
Alvarez has beforehand described the connection in media interviews as consensual, but in addition mentioned that Maradona had no less than on one event compelled himself upon her.
She mentioned that her household had solely allowed a relationship with the star to occur, regardless of the big age hole, due to Maradona’s friendship with the late Cuban President Fidel Castro.
“My household would by no means have accepted it if the Cuban authorities had not been concerned,” she mentioned. “They had been compelled in one other technique to settle for a relationship that was not good for them, or for anybody.”
Cuba’s authorities didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Alvarez mentioned she had filed the criticism “with a view to assist all ladies, all victims of trafficking, of crime,” she mentioned. “To have the ability to assist them in no matter means I can. That is my thought.”
She mentioned it was onerous to be again in Argentina, the place Maradona stays a hero to many.
“It is onerous to be in his nation, to see that he’s in every single place, he’s an idol and on the similar time every little thing I bear in mind about him as an individual feels ugly,” she mentioned.
(Reporting by Ramiro Scandalo; Enhancing by Adam Jourdan and Rosalba O’Brien)
