By EFE
The young woman who accuses Dani Alves of sexual assault confirmed this Monday before the court that the footballer raped her in a bathroom at the Sutton nightclub in Barcelona and spoke of
her fear that they would not believe her if she reported it,
a version that was supported by two of her friends.
In section 21 of the Barcelona Court, the trial against the Brazilian player began this Monday, accused of raping a 23-year-old girl in a tiny bathroom at the Sutton nightclub in Barcelona where he invited her to dance with two of her friends. in December 2022.
The Prosecutor's Office requests nine years in prison and 12 for the private accusation, brought by the victim.
Former Brazilian FC Barcelona player Dani Alves, accused of raping a young woman in a bathroom at the Sutton nightclub in Barcelona in December 2022, sitting on the dock. ALBERTO ESTÉVEZ / EFE
The footballer's defense, which asks for his acquittal because he denies the rape, although raising drunkenness and reparation for the damage as mitigating circumstances, tried without success to prevent the hearing from starting, by stating to the court that the rights of the accused had been violated by the "parallel trial" to which he has been subjected and because the police investigated him "behind his back" for weeks.
Allegations that the court rejected, after ruling out any "anomaly" in the defendant's right to defense.
But he did agree to the request of his lawyer, Inés Guardiola, that the footballer testify at the end of the trial, once witnesses and experts do so and he knows all the evidence against him.
[Dani Alves changes version and admits that he did penetrate the woman who accuses him of rape but says it was consensual]
In this way, the first to testify in the trial - which is scheduled to last until this Wednesday - was the victim, in an interrogation of just over an hour, the only one behind closed doors and between extreme measures to protect her identity and avoid his visual confrontation with Alves.
In her statement, legal sources explained, she maintained before the Barcelona Court the story that she has maintained throughout the investigation of the case: that Alves sexually assaulted her, with violence and a contemptuous attitude, after urging her to enter the hospital with him. narrow bathroom in the booth at the Sutton nightclub.
And she also reiterated her initial reluctance to file a complaint against the footballer, convinced that no one was going to "believe" her.
The version of the victim, who according to sources maintained her composure during the interrogation despite sometimes being unable to avoid sobbing, was corroborated by the two young women who accompanied her at the Sutton on the night of December 30, 2022, who testified also between tears.
The witnesses, a friend and a cousin of the victim, detailed that, since the presentations, Alves touched them with a "slobbery" attitude until making them feel "uncomfortable", although they did not imagine that this could lead to rape.
According to both witnesses, the three girls agreed to enter the reserved area where Alves was with a friend after he twice invited them, through a waiter, to have a drink with them in that VIP area of the hotel. Sutton nightclub, which has a small private bathroom.
Both indicated that they saw the footballer enter through the door that led to the bathroom - they were unaware that it was a toilet -, that his friend did so moments later and that after a quarter of an hour Alves came out and, two minutes later, the victim, with " bad face" and urging his companions to go home.
According to her friends, the young woman was crying "heartbroken" and said that the soccer player had done her "a lot of harm," but initially she was reluctant to report him while repeating: "I just want to go home, they're not going to believe me."
The days after the events, they added, the young woman remained in 'shock', still not wanting to report.
Currently, she continues to suffer from anxiety, she barely leaves the house, she feels watched and has lost the "joy" that characterized her, since she becomes obsessive "with everything," they said.
Alves' lawyer directed her interrogation to discredit the testimony of the two friends, whom she asked if the accused and the young woman were dancing "closely together" before entering the bathroom, if they smiled at each other and if their attitude was flirtatious, some questions that were raised without any type of restriction by the court and that the witnesses responded with evasions.
After his testimony, a waiter who served Alves and the three young women in the booth where they were found testified, who reiterated before the court that the footballer's friend asked him, with a simple "gesture", to invite them for a drink. a few drinks, an offer they first rejected, only to end up accepting later.
Both this and another of the waiters who served Alves, a regular customer of Sutton's booths, denied that the footballer behaved as if he were under the influence of alcohol, a circumstance that his defense uses to benefit from a mitigating circumstance that would allow him to reduce his eventual conviction.
For his part, the nightclub doorman testified that the victim told him that he had had a problem "with someone important."
He explained that Alves, upon leaving the premises, passed very close to the victim and her two friends, looking straight ahead, without greeting them.
The trial of the former Barcelona player will continue this Tuesday afternoon with the testimony of around twenty witnesses, including the footballer's wife, the model Joana Sanz, nightclub staff and the
Mossos d'Esquadra,
the Catalan police, who investigated the case.