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The judge keeps Alves imprisoned: "In each statement he has given a different version of the facts"

2023-05-09T20:35:37.439Z

Highlights: The magistrate knocks down the arguments of the defense and rejects the request of the Brazilian player to be released provisionally. A judge in Barcelona has agreed on Tuesday to keep Dani Alves in provisional detention for the alleged rape of a 23-year-old woman in a toilet of the Sutton nightclub in Barcelona. The defense of the former FC Barcelona player, 39, had requested his release for the second time, after claiming that it was a consensual sexual relationship. According to the resolution, the player "had no choice" but to change his version, since during the investigation seminal fluid was found inside the victim's vagina.


The magistrate knocks down the arguments of the defense and rejects the request of the Brazilian player to be released provisionally


A judge in Barcelona has agreed on Tuesday to keep Dani Alves in provisional detention for the alleged rape of a 23-year-old woman in a toilet of the Sutton nightclub in Barcelona. The defense of the former FC Barcelona player, 39, had requested his release for the second time, after claiming that it was a consensual sexual relationship. The magistrate has rejected the request and has decided that Alves continues in the Brians prison, where he has been admitted since January.

The order recalls that Alves "has already made several statements and in each of them he has given a different version of the facts, since he did not know the victim, until the last one, which recognizes that there was sex between the two, pointing out that it was consensual." According to the resolution, the player "had no choice" but to change his version, since during the investigation seminal fluid was found inside the victim's vagina. It also criticizes that the documentary evidence provided by the defense – which analyzes the images of the surveillance cameras – makes "a series of statements that have nothing to do with the facts." It recounts, for example, how the victim and the player dance and drink a drink. "None of that has anything to do with what happened inside the sink," the judge says.

The magistrate does not give any credibility to Alves: "It is curious that, if everything went as well as he said, after leaving the bathroom he does not speak again" to the girl. It does, however, give it to the victim, whose statement he describes as "clear, firm, forceful, credible, coherent and persistent". The judge believes that the risk of flight persists because Alves has a large patrimony and because one of the arguments he wielded (that his wife is Spanish) no longer "has consistency" since the model Joana Sanz "has requested a divorce."

This was practically the last chance the Brazilian full-back had to be released before the trial. With the investigation of the case very advanced, it is unlikely that he will try again. Especially since the Barcelona High Court already denied the release of Alves the first time it requested it, in February, on the grounds that there is a risk of flight and that the victim's story is consistent. The Prosecutor's Office, in addition, has opposed all the requests of the footballer to replace the entry into prison by another kind of precautionary measures.

Alves has been imprisoned since January 20, when he testified before the judge. It was a chaotic appearance, in which he changed his version up to three times. After maintaining that he had not had any sexual relationship with the victim, he ended up saying yes, but limited it to the practice of oral sex. By then, however, the investigation of the Mossos d'Esquadra already pointed out that there had been penetration. These flagrant contradictions landed him directly in jail: the judge stated in her order that, given the player's purchasing power and the severity of the penalties he faces for rape, there was a high risk that he would abscond.

The footballer's new lawyer, Cristobal Martell, has since tried to resolve the entanglement. For now, and waiting for what happens in the trial, without success. Last April, he asked for a new appearance before the judge. Alves acknowledged that the first time he had not told the truth, but said he did so so that his wife would not find out about the infidelity. The player also admitted for the first time that he had full sexual relations with the girl, but insisted that they were consensual and that there was "sexual tension" between the two.

A few days later, Martell requested for the second time the provisional release of the player on the grounds that the images captured by the Sutton security cameras detract from the credibility of the victim's story. The lawyers attached an expert report that analyzes these images and concludes that the accused and victim were flirting before the events, dancing and drinking together in the VIP area; Also, that the girl voluntarily entered the bathroom shortly after Alves did. For the defense, these circumstances show that things did not happen as the victim told, although the truth is that of the central episode of this story, the alleged rape in the bathroom, there are no images that help clarify the facts.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2023-05-09

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