Brazilian David Alves, a former FC Barcelona player, tried on Monday to convince the judge presiding over his case for alleged rape in Spain that what happened in a bathroom at a Barcelona nightclub was not a rape, but a mutually agreed relationship between two adults, the Spanish newspaper El País reported.
Alves, who appeared for the second time before the magistrate, accepted during a statement that lasted half an hour that he had indeed penetrated the 23-year-old girl who accuses him of rape.
However, he insisted that the intimate meeting was by mutual agreement and that there was "sexual tension" and mutual interest between the two after they met, the newspaper expanded.
Alves has been
in pretrial detention in Spain for three months
.
Brazilian soccer player Dani Alves seeks provisional release.
Andre Penner/AP
In his first statements, in February, the soccer player had denied that he had had a sexual relationship with the young woman.
He later revealed that they had consensual oral sex.
Alves explained that his change of version was due to the fact that he wanted to prevent his wife from finding out about his infidelity.
"I still love her," he said, quoted by the newspaper.
According to Alves, on the night of December 30, while he was in the VIP area of the Sutton nightclub in Barcelona, he asked one of the waiters to tell three girls to come to the place where he was sharing with a friend.
After dancing for a while -he recounted, quoted by El País-, he invited the young woman to go to a bathroom, where the events took place.
According to his version of what happened, which differs markedly from the account of the woman accusing him
, he recounted that once inside, the young woman pulled down his pants, while he sat on the toilet, and practiced a fellatio, after which she sat on his back and they had an unprotected relationship.
Alves concluded that he no longer saw the young woman when he left the disco.
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Video images, mentioned by El País, show the young woman crying at the door of the nightclub, while the player passes by her.
When asked why the young woman had filed the complaint, Alves replied that she could have been "offended or angry" because she had not been "attentive or affectionate" after the sexual relationship.
The soccer player – the newspaper expanded – could not explain the injuries that the young woman had in her intimate part and on one knee
, and which were discovered during the investigation, although he suggested that it could have occurred during fellatio.
Alves' defense, headed by lawyer Cristóbal Martell, plans to request provisional release again, something that was already denied in February due to fears that he would escape.
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During her statement on January 20, the 23-year-old who accuses Alves stated that she did not know who he was when she met him in the VIP area of the nightclub.
She specified on that occasion that the player grabbed her hand and put it on her genitals and that she withdrew it.
According to the young woman's version, Alves asked her to follow her, without knowing that they were going to a bathroom and, once there, he did not allow her to leave, he took her by the head with force and forced her to perform fellatio on him
.
To do this, he assured him, he came to slap her.
He then turned her around and penetrated her "violently," the newspaper said, after which the player got dressed and told them to go out separately.
Once outside, the young woman said, she burst into tears and told the doorman of the night establishment, who notified the authorities.
Brazil's Dani Alves celebrates their 3-1 victory over Peru in the Copa America final at the Maracana stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on July 17, 2019.AP
Alves was arrested on January 20 and placed in pretrial detention without the right to bail.
According to the sports network ESPN, the judge of the trial court number 15 of Barcelona accepted the request of the Prosecutor's Office and decided to send the player to prison, who at that time was a member of the Pumas team of the UNAM, in Mexico.
Sources from the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) revealed at that time to the ESPN Deportes network that the Brazilian player had been transferred to the Brians Penitentiary Center, where he was going to remain in preventive detention until a date was set for his trial.
