After 380 days without leaving prison, the former Brazilian soccer player
Dani Alves
traveled this Monday the 38 kilometers that distance the Brians 2 penitentiary center to the Barcelona Court where, until Wednesday, he will be tried:
he is accused of having raped a 23-year-old girl in a booth at a disco in the Catalan city in the early morning of December 31, 2022
.
Accused of a crime of sexual assault Photo: Jordi BORRAS / POOL / AFP)
The accused in the trial with summary number 27/2023 for a
crime of sexual assault
is Daniel Alves da Silva, Brazilian, 40 years old, former Barcelona player and the footballer who, when he entered the prison, boasted of being the one with the most trophies. had achieved in the history of football.
Lionel Messi tied it in August last year
.
Alves has been sleeping behind bars, in preventive detention, since January 20, 2023, when he appeared to testify and was detained.
Since then, he has recounted in
five different ways
what, according to him, happened that night at the Sutton nightclub in Barcelona, unsuccessfully requested provisional release and changed lawyers twice.
Inés Guardiola
, his current defender, is the third attempt to prove his innocence.
Wearing a white shirt, jeans and sneakers, Alves heard
his lawyer ask for the trial to be suspended
this Monday .
Guardiola argued “infringement of the player's rights.”
Over time and the change in strategy,
Alves went from declaring that he had never seen that girl to admitting that he had sex with her
.
He said that he was consensual and that there was erotic tension between them.
The last mitigating factor that he intends to be taken into account is that he was drunk that morning.
Inés Guardiola, the lawyer (r) of former Brazilian FC Barcelona player Dani Alves, accused of raping a young woman in a bathroom at the Sutton nightclub in December 2022. Photo: EFE/ Alberto Estévez / POOL
The victim, who since that morning has maintained a single version, never moved to claim that Dani Alves abused her.
Whether or not to prove consent in that sexual relationship that both admit will be key.
The Prosecutor's Office requests 9 years in prison for Alves.
The defense of the girl who reported him requests 12 and compensation of 150 thousand euros.
For days there has been talk of the possibility of the Brazilian avoiding trial if he reached an agreement with the victim.
He would have had to admit to the sexual assault that he has been denying and, in this way, his sentence could have been reduced to four years.
But there was no agreement because the former player's defense requested, in exchange for Alves acknowledging the violation, a three-year suspended sentence.
Ester García, the lawyer of the young woman who reported him, considered it unacceptable.
The Prosecutor's Office had requested that the trial take place behind closed doors but the Barcelona Court rejected the request.
Section 21 of the Hearing established that the three days of the hearing be public, although
it did guarantee that it will preserve the identity of the young woman who, at no time, will cross paths with Alves
.
The girl, who is now 24 years old, will testify this Monday.
She will be accompanied by two psychologists at all times.
He will do it behind a screen and behind closed doors.
The images that the courts usually record will distort your voice and your face will be pixelated
.
During the trial she will never be mentioned by name.
Every time she is summoned she will be “the complainant.”
Dani Alves' mother before the start of the trial against the former Barcelona footballer.
Photo: AP / Emilio Morenatti
However, it was not possible to maintain the anonymity of “the complainant.”
Weeks ago, Dani Alves' mother released her full name and videos of her dancing
and even blowing out candles on her birthday to discredit the post-traumatic disorder that the girl's defense argues.
There is an investigation underway into the dissemination of those images that Dani Alves' mother deleted from her social networks.
The young woman, who had initially refused to be compensated for the sexual assault she reported, now accepts the retribution established by law.
Her lawyer asks for 150 thousand euros.
Brazilian footballer Dani Alves sitting during his trial in Barcelona.
(Alberto Estevez/Pool Photo via AP)
Witnesses and evidence
The trial, which began this Monday at 10:00 -6:00 in Argentina-, will have
28 witnesses
.
Among them would be the model
Joana Sanz
, the Brazilian's second wife.
In an open letter, Sanz announced, weeks after the scandal, his separation from Alves who, from prison, denied him a divorce.
In recent months, the model relativized her distance from the Brazilian.
In the trial, recordings from the bowling alley cameras on the night of December 30 to 31, 2022 and traces of DNA found on the dress of the young woman who reported Alves and in the bathroom where she claims she was raped will also be provided. by the former player.
More than 300 media outlets - from 70 countries - are accredited to follow the trial of Dani Alves.
They can do so from inside the court via closed circuit in a room specially equipped for the press.
It is prohibited to disseminate images or audio recordings.
On Tuesday the testimony of 22 witnesses will be heard and on Wednesday it will be the turn of the expert reports.
At dawn on the last day of the year in 2022, when the staff of the Sutton disco found her upset and crying on the stairs of the club, the young woman who accuses Alves believed that, if she reported the sexual assault she had just suffered, no one would listen to her. .
“They're not going to believe me, they're not going to believe me
,” she repeated, desperate and helpless.
The trial, which began this Monday, shows that judges and prosecutors believed him.