Dani Alves, cornered: this will be his trial for sexual abuse against a young woman in Spain

The former player of Barcelona Dani Alves Since this Monday, he has been on the bench accused of raping a young woman in the bathroom of a nightclub in Barcelona in December 2022, a case for which he has been in prison for a year and in which he is exposed to up to twelve years in prison.

It may be of interest to you: What is going to happen with the money that Colombia paid for the Pan American Games after Char's demand?

Section 21 of the Barcelona hearing has reserved three sessions, from tomorrow until next Wednesday, to judge the footballer, whose image on the bench will be the first that the media will broadcast since his arrest and entry into preventive detention, on January 20, 2023, for a crime of aggression sexual.

The Mossos d'Esquadra they arrested Alves in his lawyer's office Barcelonawhere he traveled from Mexico – then he played in The Pumas– after being reported by a 23-year-old girl who maintains that the footballer sexually assaulted her, using violence, in the bathroom of a booth at the Sutton nightclub, where they were partying on the night of December 30, 2022.

The Prosecutor's Office asks for 9 years and 12 for the victim

The Prosecutor's Office, who proposed provisional arrest for Alves after his arrest and has since opposed his requests for freedom, requests that the footballer receive a sentence of nine years in prison and payment of compensation of 150,000 euros for the victim for a crime of sexual assault.

A request that the private accusation made by the victim raises up to twelve years in prison, the maximum for a crime of sexual assault, after rejecting the offer that the defense of Alves put on the table months ago to avoid trial: a minimum prison sentence that would allow him to be released in exchange for a hefty compensation.

Read here: Lewis Hamilton's multimillion-dollar contract with Ferrari revealed: the highest in F1?

A year in prison and four versions of what happened

Through his lawyer Ines Guardiola, the third he has had during a year in which he has changed his version of what happened in up to four times Suttonthe accused asks the Court to acquit him because he maintains that the sexual relationship was consensual and, although he does not propose alternative sentences, he does raise mitigating circumstances to reduce an eventual sentence.

Specifically, the lawyer will try to prove that the footballer was drunk on the night of January 30, a possible mitigating circumstance to which would be added the compensation for the damage, for the 150,000 euros that Alves has already been delivered to the court to cover possible compensation for the victim, although the judge set that amount as bail, under warning of seizure, when she prosecuted him.

The two mitigating circumstances raised by the defense could serve to support a last-minute agreement with the accusations that avoids the trial, a possibility that cannot be ruled out until the oral hearing has begun and that would force Alves to admit before the court that he raped the young woman. .

Also: 'Supermán' López: they filter these new tests that would link him to a doping plot

The footballer will go to trial one year after his arrest – a record time taking into account the usual delay in judicial agendas, even in cases involving prisoners – and he will do so led by the Mossos from jail Brians 2 in which he remains as a preventive prisoner since his arrest, without the Audience upheld any of the three requests raised by his defense to be released.

In addition, he will be spared the media exposure of his statement and that of the witnesses, given that the court has prohibited the broadcast of images and sound of the oral hearing: only on the first day will news agencies be allowed, such as “pool “, capture photographic and video images of the footballer.

Up to 28 witnesses, including his wife

The victim will testify behind closed doors, protected by a screen to avoid her visual confrontation with the accused, and with her image and voice distorted to protect her from any subsequent leak, measures that have been urged by the accusations after the mother of Alves published the identity and several videos of the young woman on Instagram.

Up to 28 witnesses will appear before the court, including the complainant herself and the two young women who accompanied her on Sutton's night, a friend and a cousin, who already revealed before the investigating judge that the footballer also groped them before taking the complainant away. to the bathroom.

Sutton staff will also testify, including the doorman who attended to the victim after the events or the waiters who were serving them drinks, as well as the friend who accompanied Alves at the nightclub and the athlete's wife, Joana Sanz, proposed by the defense to prove that he was drunk.

The court is likely to allow Alves be questioned at the end of the hearing, once the rest of the witnesses – also the victim's mother and 11 mossos d'esquadra– and the scientific police and forensic agents present their reports.

It remains to be seen if the Brazilian footballer will add any new element to the four versions that he has offered to justice about what happened after being arrested.

SPORTS
With information from EFE.

More news in EL TIEMPO