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Diego to face Cuba
confinement
The
Telegraph, India,
September 11, 2004.
Havana: World Cup winner Diego Maradona
will face stricter treatment for cocaine
addiction when he returns to Cuba, probably
late Wednesday, Argentine ambassador Raul
Abraham Taleb said Tuesday.
Maradona's family will ask Cuban leader
Fidel Castro to be a "strict father"
to the former Argentine captain, whose treatment
at a Havana mental institution will be supervised
by a Cuban judge, Taleb said.
"He will probably arrive tomorrow,"
the ambassador said at a news conference.
"He will come with his father, his
personal doctor Alfredo Cahe, and not people
who encouraged him to continue taking drugs.
"They will ask Castro to use his friendship
with Maradona to become a strict father."
Maradona's family forced him to enter a
psychiatric clinic in Argentina in May after
he was rushed to intensive care in April
with a swollen heart and breathing problems.
An Argentine judge allowed Maradona to
leave the clinic on the outskirts of Buenos
Aires Monday to continue treatment elsewhere
and the 43-year-old was planning to return
to Cuba, which he has made his second home
in recent years.
This time Maradona will be confined to
the Center for Mental Health (CENSAM) and
denied privileges and the freedom to eat
and drink at will until he is cured, the
ambassador said.
For almost four years, Maradona lived at
Havana's La Pradera health farm, where he
partied with friends while playing golf
almost daily at the Cuban capital's only
golf club.
"He will be under control at CENSAM,
because the prestige of Cuban medical treatment
is at stake," Taleb said.
The Center, which advertises itself as
a place for "curing mental illnesses
and addictions," has an enclosed compound
of bungalows and gardens run by Cuba's interior
ministry in a leafy suburb of Havana.
Maradona, one of the most
gifted players in the history of soccer
who led Argentina to victory at the 1986
World Cup, said he has been fighting drug
addiction for much of the last 20 years.
(Agencies)
Copyright
© 2002 The Telegraph. All rights reserved.
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