DIEGO MARADONA’S autopsy showed he died in prolonged agony after going hours without treatment.

The bombshell details have reportedly come to the fore as seven medical professionals stand trial for culpable homicide over Maradona’s death.

The Argentina legend and World Cup winner died aged 60 from a heart attack in 2020.

And now, a forensic expert has claimed Maradona suffered in pain for 12 hours with an enlarged heart that weighed more than a football.

According to Argentina newspaper Clarin, Carlos Mauricio Casinelli showed the court pictures of blood clots which apparently confirmed the “signs of agony” that Maradona went through.

He claimed the football icon’s heart became double its size in the time leading to his death.

While Maradona’s organs are also said to have accumulated four-and-a-half litres of fluid due to his heart failure.

And Casinelli argued that any competent medical professional should have been able to see what was happening to Maradona before his passing.

Casinelli said: “The heart was completely covered in fat and blood clots, which indicate agony.

“This is a patient who had been collecting water over the days; that’s not acute.

“This was something that was foreseeable. Any doctor examining a patient would find this.

“The water he had in his abdomen, in both pleurae and in his heart isn’t normal; it doesn’t form in a day or an hour.

“It’s been forming over several days. There’s no exact time. It could have been from the time he was expelled (from hospital) until he died.

“This is likely to take at least 10 days, given the addition of cirrhosis and myocarditis.”

Casinelli went on to describe the dark and dank conditions Maradona was left in before he died.

He added: “It was a dark, partitioned room with a bed in the middle and a portable toilet.

“It didn’t seem like a suitable place for what we later learned was home hospitalisation.”

Casinelli’s claims were backed up by forensic doctor Federico Corosaniti.

He said: “From my experience with the generalised edema, the difficulty he must have had breathing and exchanging gases, and the sounds in his lungs that are audible just by bringing his face close.

“In my opinion as a doctor, it wasn’t a sudden event.”

The seven medical professionals on trial for culpable homicide over Maradona’s death deny any wrongdoing.

They face up to 25 years in prison if found guilty.