Dani Alves, the former Barça, PSG and Brazil full-back, was sentenced Thursday in Spain to four and a half years in prison for the rape in 2022 of a young woman in a Barcelona nightclub.
Published on: 02/22/2024 – 10:42 Modified on: 02/22/2024 – 10:49
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Footballer Dani Alves, former Brazilian star of Barça and PSG, was sentenced Thursday February 22 to four and a half years in prison for rape, announced the Barcelona court which tried him.
The facts occurred in a nightclub in the Catalan city in 2022:
“The victim did not consent and there is evidence which, beyond the testimony of the complainant, allows the rape to be considered proven,” the court wrote in a press release.
This sentence is much lower than that of nine years in prison requested by the prosecution against the footballer.
Alves, who has been in pre-trial detention for more than a year and will be able to appeal this verdict, was also ordered to pay 150,000 euros to the victim, to 5 years of supervised release once his sentence has been served and to stay away of the victim for 9 and a half years.
“The court considers as proven the fact that the accused suddenly grabbed the complainant, threw her to the ground and penetrated her vaginally, preventing her from moving, while the complainant said no and wanted go away,” added the court.
Alves, 40, was tried two weeks ago for having raped this young woman in the toilets of a VIP room at the Sutton nightclub in Barcelona, on the night of December 30 to 31, 2022.
“Violent attitude” and “terror”
According to the indictment, the Brazilian, who then wore the colors of FC Barcelona after playing the World Cup in Qatar, was in this nightclub with a friend. After offering champagne to the complainant, her cousin and a friend, he allegedly invited her to accompany him to an adjoining room with a toilet.
He would then have had a “violent attitude” towards the young woman, according to the prosecution, who had described a “situation of anxiety and terror” for the young woman. A version corroborated during the trial by the friend and cousin of the complainant.
Suffering, according to the public prosecutor, from “post-traumatic stress of generally high intensity”, the victim had testified behind closed doors, in order to protect her identity, and behind a screen to avoid any visual contact with Alves.
His voice had been altered and his face pixelated on the recording, intended for the judges’ exclusive use, in case it leaked.
Denying having committed rape, the former Brazilian international had, for his part, affirmed in court that this relationship, which he had admitted, was consensual. He had refuted any form of violence against the complainant.
“If she wanted to leave, she could leave at any time, she did not have to be there,” he declared, assuring that he was “not a violent man”.
Version changes
Alves had contested the facts since the start of the case, but his defense was weakened by his numerous changes of version.
After claiming in a video, at the beginning of January 2023, that he had never met the complainant, he justified his lie by explaining that he wanted to protect his marriage, before ending up recognizing a sexual relationship, consensual according to him, with the complainant.
One of the most successful footballers in history, Dani Alves enjoyed the most glorious period of his career at Barça, between 2008 and 2016, winning 23 trophies.
Brazilian player Dani Alves in the colors of PSG, during the 2018-2019 Ligue 1 season AFP/File
This talented full-back, who also played for Sevilla FC (Spain), Juventus Turin (Italy) and Paris Saint-Germain, was playing for the Mexican club Pumas at the time of his incarceration. This club, with which he was under contract until the end of last season, then immediately fired him.
With AFP
