BUENOS AIRES: Two of late football great Diego Maradona’s daughters on Thursday denied charges of alleged digital harassment in a case relating to a long-running feud with their father’s former lawyer.
Dalma and Gianinna Maradona are accused of harassing Matias Morla with whom they are embroiled in an inheritance dispute.
In a letter submitted to the public prosecutor in Buenos Aires, lawyers for the sisters denied the accusations against them and claimed they were the ones to have “suffered public derision ... from the one who is now trying to assume the role of victim.”
If found guilty of the online harassment, which relates to social media posts the sisters made about Morla, they could be fined, ordered to perform community service or even spend up to five days in jail.
They have accused Morla of fraud and fraudulent administration of their father’s brand and image rights.
In March, a company owned by Morla was temporarily barred from using Maradona brands such as Diego Maradona, Maradona, D10S, El Diez, La mano de Dios (the hand of God) and El Diego, but that ban was lifted by a court last week.
Following that decision, the sisters again accused Morla of “defrauding” their father out of his brand and image rights.
The Maradona brands are registered officially as owned by Sattvica S.A., a company owned by Morla and a brother-in-law.
The company was set up in 2015, six months after Maradona signed over his brand and image rights to Morla.
Maradona died of a heart attack on November 25 last year aged 60 while recovering from an operation to remove a blood clot from his head.
In a separate investigation, authorities are looking into the health treatment he received to determine whether there was any neglect or malpractice, following a complaint by Maradona’s family.
Two Maradona daughters deny harassing his ex-lawyer
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Two Maradona daughters deny harassing his ex-lawyer
- Dalma and Gianinna Maradona are accused of harassing Matias Morla with whom they are embroiled in an inheritance dispute
- They have accused Morla of fraud and fraudulent administration of their father's brand and image rights
NASA and families of fallen astronauts mark 40th anniversary of space shuttle Challenger accident
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida: Families of the astronauts lost in the space shuttle Challenger accident gathered back at the launch site Thursday to mark that tragic day 40 years ago.
All seven on board were killed when Challenger broke apart following liftoff on Jan. 28, 1986.
At the Kennedy Space Center memorial ceremony, Challenger pilot Michael Smith’s daughter, Alison Smith Balch, said through tears that her life forever changed that frigid morning, as did many other lives. “In that sense,” she told the hundreds of mourners, “we are all part of this story.”
“Every day I miss Mike,” added his widow, Jane Smith-Holcott, “every day’s the same.”
The bitter cold weakened the O-ring seals in Challenger’s right solid rocket booster, causing the shuttle to rupture 73 seconds after liftoff. A dysfunctional culture at NASA contributed to that disaster and, 17 years later, shuttle Columbia’s.
Kennedy Space Center’s deputy director Kelvin Manning said those humble and painful lessons require constant vigilance “now more than ever” with rockets soaring almost every day and the next astronaut moonshot just weeks away.
Challenger’s crew included schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe, who was selected from thousands of applicants representing every state. Two of her fellow teacher-in-space contenders — both retired now — attended the memorial.
“We were so close together,” said Bob Veilleux, a retired astronomy high school teacher from New Hampshire, McAuliffe’s home state.
Bob Foerster, a sixth grade math and science teacher from Indiana who was among the top 10 finalists, said he’s grateful that space education blossomed after the accident and that it didn’t just leave Challenger’s final crew as “martyrs.”
“It was a hard reality,” Foerster noted at the Space Mirror Memorial at Kennedy’s visitor complex.
Twenty-five names are carved into the black mirror-finished granite: the Challenger seven, the seven who perished in the Columbia disaster on Feb. 1, 2003, the three killed in the Apollo 1 fire on Jan. 27, 1967, and all those lost in plane and other on-the-job accidents.
Relatives of the fallen Columbia and Apollo crews also attended NASA’s Day of Remembrance, held each year on the fourth Thursday of January. The space agency also held ceremonies at Virginia’s Arlington National Cemetery and Houston’s Johnson Space Center.
“You always wonder what they could have accomplished” had they lived longer, Lowell Grissom, brother of Apollo 1 commander Gus Grissom, said at Kennedy. “There was a lot of talent there.”
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