The investigation surrounding the death of football legend Diego Maradona has taken another sinister turn as his ex-wife, Claudia Villafane, has come forward to accuse his lawyer, Matias Morla, of kidnapping.

Villafane had a tumultuous relationship with the Argentine footballer both during and after their marriage. They stayed together between 1989 and 2003, but she had been embroiled in numerous legal battles with him since.

Despite this, she claims that she and her ex-husband have remained close and in constant communication. "I was angry [with Maradona] due to a lawsuit but later he would see me and hug me and dance with me, but no one knew that," she said, as if defending the credibility of her knowledge about Maradona's life after their marriage ended.

"I did talk to Diego, although we didn't make it public and we had lawsuits in between. We knew how to divide everything very well," she said. According to Marca, the legal battles between the former couple stemmed from financial disputes.

Regardless of their issues, Villafane has been vocal about Maradona's death. She is particularly irked by Morla and Mauricio D'Alessandro, another lawyer who is working for Morla amid the investigation into Maradona's death.

D'Alessandro appeared in a televised interview with America news channel in Argentina. His ex-wife reacted to his comments by voicing out her own opinions about what happened on November 25 when the former footballer was found dead of an apparent cardiac arrest.

"He wants to make me look like the bad guy in the movie and the truth is I'm not, he [D'Alessandro] knows it," she said, before accusing Morla of kidnapping. "He's defending a person who had kidnapped Diego. I can't keep listening to the atrocities they are saying."

Maradona's medical team is also being investigated alongside Morla. The family has accused them of medical malpractice, including keeping the 1986 World Cup winner away from receiving proper medical care so that they could continue to benefit from his assets.

Meanwhile, Maradona's doctor, Leopoldo Luque, has maintained his innocence. He said in previous interviews that Maradona was addicted to alcohol and was difficult to control. An audio recording was recently published by "infobae" wherein the voices of people who are believed to be Luque and Maradona's kinesiologist Nicolas Taffarel, could be heard accusing his former assistant, Charly Ibanez, of voluntarily giving him alcohol and not controlling his ingestion of pills.

Meanwhile, in a different audio leak, Maradona's latest assistant and Morla's brother-in-law, could allegedly be heard talking about keeping the footballer from being taken by his daughter, Gianinna.

The investigation continues.

Maradona and his doctor
Diego Maradona (R) and his doctor Leopoldo Luque are pictured in Olivos, Argentina on November 11 Photo: Diego Maradona press office / -
Argentina