A funeral worker, who took a photo of himself next to Maradona’s corpse, has been fired from his job.
Diego Molina was one of the men working for the funeral parlour tasked to prepare Maradona’s body ahead of the private open-coffin wake for family and friends.
Apart from losing his job, Molina has also received death threats from fans after his photo was shared on social media.
Molina received the wrath of furious fans for desecrating the sporting legend’s body when he posed for a photo with one hand resting on Maradona’s head and the other holding a thumbs up. Another photo emerged showing Molina standing in a van that was leaving the morgue in Buenos Aires following Maradona’s autopsy.
Owners of the funeral parlour Sepelios Pinier confirmed to local media that the worker has lost his job. But this did not stop fans from sending Molina death threats and making calls for him to be stripped of his Argentinian citizenship, the Daily Mail reported.
One Maradona fan who saw the picture wrote: “I want this fat baldie who took a picture of himself by Diego’s body dead. I want him dead. DEAD.”
Another said: “He should be stripped of his Argentinian citizenship. You don’t do something like this. Complete lack of respect.”
Maradona’s lawyer Matias Morla tweeted a photo of Molina as he pledged to take legal action.
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“This is Diego Molina, the author of the photo taken beside Maradona’s coffin. He’s Pinier’s head of burials. Diego Molina is the swine that took the picture of himself alongside Maradona. For the memory of my friend I am not going to rest until he pays for this aberration.”
Meanwhile, Morla claimed that Maradona was left for 12 hours without aid at some point before his death when he succumbed to a heart attack on Wednesday. He also said it was “criminal idiocy” that an ambulance took 30 minutes to arrive.
“It is inexplicable that for 12 hours, my friend had no attention or check-up from the personnel dedicated to these ends,” he said in a statement.
Morla vowed to investigate the circumstances surrounding Maradona’s death to the very end.
After the private open-coffin wake, Maradona’s casket was closed for the public send-off at the presidential palace where his body lies in state. His coffin is covered with the Argentinian flag along with his jerseys bearing his signature number 10.