Dani Alves will give his definitive version this Wednesday on what happened in the early hours of December 31, 2022 in the VIP bathroom of a club in Barcelona, where he remained locked up for 16 minutes with a girl who had reported him for rape.
In preventive detention for more than a year, the former footballer will testify before section 21 of the Barcelona court which is trying him for the crime of sexual violence.
The Prosecutor’s Office is asking for a 9-year prison sentence for Alves. The defense lawyer of the young girl who reported him, 12 years old.
This Wednesday, the third and last day of the oral hearing, the court’s consideration of a concept, as abstract as it is powerful, which can define the defendant’s fate will be crucial: consent.
Dani Alves’ wife, Joana Sanz, arm in arm with the footballer’s mother, Dona Lucía, leaves the Barcelona pitch. Photo: EFEThe complaint by the girl, 23 years old at the time, and the sexual violence that she herself claimed to have suffered occurred whenThe new sex crimes legislation was in force.
The organic law for the complete guarantee of sexual freedom, known in Spain as the “only yes means yes law”, has sparked controversy – due to the involuntary modification of sentences for favored sexual offenders – but has shifted the focus to the debate on the issue of crimes of sexual nature.
For the new law the key is “yes”, essential so that any physical contact between two people is not considered a crime.
This consent, however, must be free, clear and explicit.
“Consent will be understood only when it has been freely expressed through acts which, in light of the circumstances of the case, clearly express the will of the interested party,” we read in the text of the law.
According to the girl’s testimony who accuses the former Barça defender, Alves motioned for him to come closer., he took her through a door she didn’t know where it led and locked her with him in a tiny bathroom. There he would mistreat her, insult her, beat her and rape her.
The lawyer Inés Guardiola, who defends Dani Alves. Photo: EFEThe young woman had maintained this version since she filed the complaint in January last year.
The statements that complicate Dani Alves
Witnesses who appeared in court in Barcelona this week – her friend, her cousin, the nightclub employees and the Catalan police officers who assisted her – provided statements confirming what the girl said on the first day .
This was not the case with Alves. Perhaps ill-advised, The former footballer underestimated the initial complainthe denied knowing the young girl and when he finally admitted having had sexual intercourse with her – there is genetic material that the case investigations collected in the bathroom where he was locked up with the girl and in her dress – he always maintained that it was as mutually agreed.
On Monday, during the first day of the trial, the former player’s lawyer asked the plaintiff’s cousin: “Did your cousin tell you that she entered the bathroom voluntarily?”.
“Yes”was the answer.
Alves’ defense also aims to strengthen the thesis according to which That New Year’s morning the Brazilian was very drunk.
The testimony given on Tuesday before the court by his wife, the model Joana Sanz, and that of Bruno, the friend who was with him that evening in the Sutton nightclub in Barcelona, reinforced the alleged drunkenness of the former footballer.
What does the “let’s not be silent” protocol consist of?
Another decisive aspect in the assistance to the young woman and in the collection of any evidence to support the complainant’s claims was the immediate application of the “Let’s not be silent” protocol by the nightclub.
This is a protocol that has been active in the nightclubs of the Municipality of Barcelona since 2018 and requires that the premises have staff trained to react to possible sexual violence.
In the Alves case, the staff at the Sutton nightclub knew what to do and immediately called the Mossos d’Esquadra, the Catalan regional police. As soon as they discovered that the girl sitting on the stairs was crying, they assisted her.
Alves, in a gesture that makes it clear that he is starting to understand the problem he is going through. Photo: EFE“They won’t believe me, they won’t believe me”
This is what the young woman shouted, distraught, when her friend, her cousin and the staff who applied the protocol advised her to file a complaint.
The credibility of an alleged victim is another aspect that reinforces the law that only yes means yes.
Due to the fragile truthfulness that the accusation of a possible rape victim accumulated in the collective social imagination, the girl who reported Dani Alves initially declared that she renounced any type of compensation. She just wanted them to believe him and for her attacker, despite being a football star, to be arrested.
The new law of only yes is yes provides that this initial refusal can be revoked: it believes that it could be a hasty decision characterized by traumatic stress.
Today the plaintiff from Alves is asking for compensation of 150 thousand euros.
When the public hearing began on Monday, Dani Alves asked to testify at the end of the three-day trial and the court granted it. He will speak after having given, over the last year, five different versions of what happened in the bathroom of the nightclub and having listened, in these three days, to almost thirty witnesses
Source: Clarin
Jason Root is the go-to source for sports coverage at News Rebeat. With a passion for athletics and an in-depth knowledge of the latest sports trends, Jason provides comprehensive and engaging analysis of the world of sports.