Dani Alves will give his definitive version this Wednesday about what happened in the early hours of December 31, 2022 in a VIP bathroom at a club in Barcelona, where he remained locked up for 16 minutes with a girl who reported him for rape.
In preventive detention for more than a year, the former soccer player will give his testimony before the section 21 court of the Barcelona Court that is trying him for the crime of sexual assault.
The Prosecutor's Office requests a sentence of 9 years in prison for Alves
.
The defense lawyer of the young woman who reported him, 12.
This Wednesday, the third and last day of the oral trial, the court's consideration of a concept, as abstract as it is forceful, that can define the fate of the accused will be crucial: consent.
Dani Alves' wife, Joana Sanz, arm in arm with the footballer's mother, Dona Lucía, leave the Barcelona Court.
Photo: EFE
The complaint by the girl, who was 23 years old at the time, and the sexual assault that she declared she had suffered occurred when the
new legislation on sexual crimes was in force
.
The organic law of comprehensive guarantee of sexual freedom, which in Spain is known as the “law of only yes means yes”, generated controversy - due to the involuntary modification of sentences for sexual offenders who were favored - but changed the focus to debate about crimes of a sexual nature.
For the new law, the key is in the “yes” that is essential so that all physical contact between two people is not considered a crime.
That consent, on the other hand, must be free, clear and explicit.
“Consent will only be understood when it has been freely expressed through acts that, in light of the circumstances of the case, clearly express the will of the person,” states the text of the law.
According to the testimony of the girl
who accuses the former Barça defender,
Alves motioned for her to come to where he was
, made her cross a door that she did not know where it led to, and locked her with him in a tiny bathroom.
There he would have mistreated her, insulted her, beaten her and raped her.
The lawyer Inés Guardiola, who defends Dani Alves.Photo: EFE
The young woman maintained this version since she made the complaint in January of last year.
The statements that complicate Dani Alves
The witnesses who passed through the Barcelona Court this week - her friend, her cousin, employees of the nightclub and Catalan police officers who assisted her - provided statements that confirm what the girl said from the first day.
It was not the case with Alves.
Perhaps poorly advised,
the former soccer player underestimated the initial complaint
, denied knowing the young woman and when he finally admitted to having had sex with her - there is genetic material that the investigation of the case collected in the bathroom where he was locked up with the girl and in his dress - always maintained that it was by mutual agreement.
On Monday, during the first day of the trial, the former player's lawyer asked the complainant's cousin: "Did
your cousin tell you that he voluntarily entered the bathroom?"
”.
“Yes
,” was the answer.
Alves' defense is also committed to reinforcing the thesis according to which
the Brazilian was very drunk that early morning at the end of the year
.
The testimony that his wife, the model Joana Sanz, gave on Tuesday before the court and that of Bruno, the friend who was with him that night at the Sutton disco in Barcelona, reinforced the former footballer's alleged drunkenness.
What the "we are not silent" protocol is about
Another decisive aspect when assisting the young woman and collecting possible evidence to support the complainant's statement was the instant application of the “We are not silent” protocol by the nightclub.
This is an active protocol in nightclubs of Barcelona City Council since 2018 and consists of the clubs having trained personnel to react to possible sexual violence.
In the Alves case, the staff of the Sutton disco knew how to act and immediately called the Mossos d'Esquadra, the Catalan regional police.
As soon as they detected the girl sitting on a staircase crying, they assisted her.
Alves, in a gesture that makes it clear that he is beginning to understand the problem he is going through. Photo: EFE
“They're not going to believe me, they're not going to believe me”
This is what the heartbroken young woman shouted when her friend, her cousin and the staff who applied the protocol recommended she file a report.
The credibility of an alleged victim is another aspect that reinforces the law of only yes means yes.
Because of that fragile veracity that the accusation of a possible rape victim used to garner in the social collective imagination, the girl who reported Dani Alves said, at first, that she was renouncing all types of compensation.
She just wanted them to believe her and for her attacker, even though he was a soccer star, to be arrested.
The new law of only yes is yes provides that this initial refusal can be revoked: it considers that it may be a hasty decision and crossed by traumatic stress.
Today Alves's complainant is demanding compensation of 150 thousand euros
.
On Monday, when this public hearing began, Dani Alves asked to testify at the end of the three-day trial and the court granted it.
He will speak after having given, in the last year, five different versions of what happened in the disco's bathroom and having listened, in these three days, to almost thirty witnesses