Dani Alves has paid bail and will be able to leave Spanish prison

The Brazilian footballer Daniele Alvesconvicted of rape in Spain, paid bail 1.1 million dollars that a court has asked him to be allowed to leave prison on bail, the court heard this Monday.

THE Hearing in Barcelona He had granted the favorable measure to the athlete last Wednesday, but until Monday he had not been able to deposit the money requested by the court to free him while the appeals against his sentence were resolved.

“We inform you that the account of section 21 of the Court of Barcelona includes the deposit of Daniel Alves’ bail“, the Court said in a brief statement.

Alves will now be able to leave the Brians 2 prison, located about 40 kilometers from Barcelona, ​​​​where He has been detained since the end of January 2023.

The 40-year-old footballer, with a successful career in teams such as Barcelona, ​​Juventus and Paris Saint-Germain, In February he was sentenced by that court to four and a half years in prison for raping a woman in the bathrooms of a nightclub in that Spanish city at the end of 2022.

The court also imposed further five years of probationan order to detain the victim for nine and a half years and pay compensation of approximately $163,000.

The sentence was challenged both by Alves’ defense, which during the trial asked for his acquittal, and by the prosecutor’s office, which wants to toughen the sentence received by the player.

These appeals can take months to resolve.

The Barcelona court granted bail on Wednesdaythe day after the hearing in which the Brazilian’s defense asked for this measure, arguing that his client has already served a quarter of the sentence he received.

This circumstance would allow him, in the event of a final sentence, to begin enjoying the benefits of the prison sentence.

At the end of the short hearing, Alves, released from prison via videoconference, He assured the court that he would not flee and that he believed in justice.

These arguments did not convince either the Prosecutor’s Office or the private prosecutor’s office, who continued to oppose the exit of the former Brazilian international, considering the risk of flight to be high.

But the court, which had supported this reason for rejecting requests for Alves’ release during the investigation, now found that “the passage of time” is a “mitigating factor” of the previous criteria, and noted that the risk of flight “He slowed down.”

Despite his successful career in elite football where he holds the record for the number of trophies won alongside Lionel Messi, it took Alves days to collect his €1 million bail. Neymar’s father, who helped him financially after his arrest, denied helping him now that he is already convicted.

According to his defense, the footballer’s financial situation was strongly affected by his arrest in January 2023, which resulted, among other things, in the suspension of his contract with Pumas de México and that he is still waiting to earn large sums after several disputes with the Spanish. Treasure.

Magistrates acknowledged that Alves’ true financial situation is “not known”, but that it can be assumed that he still has a “comfortable financial solvency”.

In addition to bail, the court also imposed other measures to temporarily release him until the final sentence. such as the withdrawal of his two passportsthe obligation to appear weekly before the Court, not to leave Spain or the ban on approaching the victim.

Source: AFP