Maradona Tested Positive, Report Says
An Argentine news agency reported today that police tests on Diego Maradona were positive for cocaine use as the soccer star remained isolated in a jail cell.
The 30-year-old Maradona, arrested Friday with two other men, was questioned for three hours by Federal Judge Amelia Berraz de Vidal. Later in the day, he was again taken before the judge, this time with his hands cuffed behind his back.
Meanwhile, the goverment stripped Maradona of his title as presidential adviser and sports ambassador for President Carlos Saul Menem.
Menem, speaking in Santa Rosa, described Maradona as a "sick boy" who "must be helped to rid himself of this vice that is destroying him morally and materially."
Maradona, the best-known soccer player in the world, was held at the federal court building after his arrest at an alleged cocaine sales and distribution center.
The national news agency Noticias Argentinas cited court sources as saying urine tests performed on Maradona and two men arrested with him indicated that all three showed signs of cocaine use.
The report could not immediately be confirmed, but Interior Minister Julio Mera Figueroa said in a broadcast interview that he had received "unofficial reports" that Maradona had the drug in his system when he was arrested.
Under Argentina's recently stiffened drug laws, a person found guilty of possessing small amounts of cocaine for purposes of consumption can be sentenced to between one month and two years in prison.
Maradona, the captain of Argentina's national team and of defending Italian League champion Naples, was suspended from soccer on March 29 after testing positive for cocaine following a match on March 17 against Bari. The suspension was set at 15 months and extended worldwide by FIFA, soccer's governing body. But Maradona continues to draw 60 percent of his $2 million annual salary from Naples.
On Friday, Maradona and two other men -- identified by police as Ricardo Ayala and Jorge Perez -- were arrested after the police raided an apartment in the middle-class neighborhood of Caballito, four miles from downtown Buenos Aires.
The apartment, owned by Ayala, had been under surveillance for three months, police said. Maradona had been seen entering the apartment on Thursday, officers said.
SOCCER