Former FC Barcelona player Daniel Alves Since Monday he has been sitting on the bench in the Barcelona Courthouse, accused of raping a young woman in the bathroom of a nightclub. In December 2022 in the capital of Catalonia, the Prosecutor’s Office asked him for a nine-year prison sentence.
The 21st division of the Barcelona Court has set aside three days until Wednesday to try the football player. He has been detained for security reasons since January 20, 2023.On the night of December 30, 2022, when the Mossos d’Esquadra arrested him at his lawyer’s office after a 23-year-old girl reported that he had raped her.
If a last minute agreement between the parties does not prevent thisThe hearing will begin at 10:00 with the discussion of preliminary issues.Alves’ defense will likely ask the court to allow him to testify at the end of the trial, after witnesses have been heard and expert evidence has been presented.
If the court accepts this request, the hearing will begin with the statement of the victim, who will be questioned behind closed doors with his voice distorted and his face pixelated to prevent later leakage of the hearing records, and then the hearing will begin. Friends who were with Alves the night they met at Sutton nightclub will testify.
While the prosecutor’s office requests Nine years in prison and 150 thousand euros in compensation to be paid to the Brazilian national playerThe specific charge filed by the victim — along with attorney Ester Garcia — raises her request to 12 years in prison, the maximum for a sexual assault crime.
The defense, led by lawyers Inés Guardiola and Miraida Puente Wilson, requests Alves’ acquittal, arguing that there was no rape and that sexual intercourse with the complainant was consensual. a possible conviction: compensation for damage caused by drunkenness and the payment of 150,000 euros, which the judge set as bail to cover possible compensation to the victim.
The prosecutor’s office has no doubt that Alves sexually assaulted the young woman in a “humiliating and violent” manner after placing her in the small compartment that was the bathroom in the private room. “anguish” and terror” that prevent him from responding.
According to the Public Ministry, which stated that the complainant’s account was completely correct, Dani AlveHe invited the young woman and her friends to drink champagne at the stand they were at and after dancing and chatting with them, around 3:20 a.m., he invited the victim to follow him to an adjoining door, which he did not know provided access to a private bathroom.
When we get there, the Public Ministry continues: “She started caressing him with a sensual spirit and with the intention of satisfying her sexual desires.“And when he was faced with the young woman’s resistance and desire to let her go, he slapped her and raped her without using a condom.
Over the course of three trial sessions, 28 witnesses will appear in court, including nightclub staff, his friend who was partying with Alves when the events occurred, and the athlete’s wife, Joana Sanz, who was proven by the defense that Sutton was not guilty. he was drunk that night.
In addition to the police officers who dealt with the complainant and those who investigated the rape based on the analysis of biological evidence collected in the bathroom of the private room, experts who prepared biological and psychological reports about the victim will also testify.
In total 270 professionals, 23 of whom are foreign, from 70 media outlets were accredited to follow Alves’ caseAlthough neither the video nor the audio of the hearing will be broadcast, except for some footage of the defendants sitting in the dock in the moments before the start of the trial, it will be broadcast to the press via an internal circuit signal.