BARCELONA, Spain: After being escorted in handcuffs into the Barcelona courtroom, Dani Alves sat in silence and listened to a stream of witnesses give testimony through the second day of his sexual assault trial on Tuesday.
Alves is accused of sexually assaulting a lady within the rest room of an upscale Barcelona nightclub early within the morning of Dec. 31, 2022.
He has denied any wrongdoing.
State prosecutors are searching for a 9-yr jail sentence for Alves if convicted whereas the legal professionals representing his accuser need 12 years.
His accuser testified on Monday, the beginning of the three-day trial, behind closed doorways on order of the courtroom. State prosecutors requested for the courtroom to take further measures to guard her identification after a video circulated on social media final month that allegedly recognized the girl.
In testimony beforehand given to state prosecutors final yr, the girl stated she met Alves in a VIP space of the Sutton nightclub after midnight the place she had gone with a good friend and a cousin. She stated she accompanied Alves into a personal rest room the place he allegedly slapped her, used insulting language and raped her.
Alves has stated the encounter was consented by her.
The girl’s good friend and cousin testified on Monday that once they noticed her after she exited the toilet she was distraught and advised them Alves “hurt her badly” by forcing her to have intercourse with out her consent.
On Tuesday, law enforcement officials who attended to the alleged sufferer testified she was enormously shaken and advised them she had been sexually assaulted by Alves. The officers stated she needed to overcome her fears that “nobody would believe her” earlier than she formally denounced Alves.
One officer stated the girl advised him “I don’t want money, I want justice.”
The nightclub supervisor, who activated a sexual assault protocol by counseling the girl and calling police, stated she advised him she entered the toilet with Alves “voluntarily but later she wanted to leave and he would not let her.”
Alves’ good friend, who was additionally an worker of the Mexican soccer membership Pumas the place Alves was taking part in, additionally testified. The good friend, who accompanied Alves that night time, stated Alves drank wine and whiskey earlier than going to the nightclub. According to his good friend, Alves and the alleged sufferer danced collectively and confirmed “chemistry” earlier than going into the toilet. He stated he hadn’t observed something fallacious with the girl afterward.
Alves’ spouse, Joana Sanz, advised the courtroom that Alves was “smelling of alcohol” when he arrived to their dwelling exterior Barcelona early within the morning. Sanz, Alves’ spouse since 2017, stated that she has not legally requested a divorce, after having stated that she needed one after the scandal broke.
Alves may have his flip to talk to the three-choose panel on Wednesday.
The 40-yr-previous Alves has been in pre-trial jail since being detained on Jan. 20, 2023. His requests for bail have been denied as a result of the courtroom thought of him a flight danger, regardless of his provide at hand over his passport and put on a monitoring machine. Brazil doesn’t extradite its personal residents when they’re sentenced in different international locations.
Alves modified his protection a number of instances through the investigative part whereas in custody.
At first, he denied having ever seen the girl when he went dancing on the night time in query. Upon his arrest, he then denied any sexual contact along with her, solely to later admit to a sexual encounter that he stated was consented to by the girl. He stated he had been attempting to avoid wasting his marriage by not admitting to the sexual encounter initially.
Alves has been ordered to put aside 150,000 euros ($162,000) to pay his alleged sufferer if he’s discovered responsible and ordered to pay damages.
This is the primary excessive-profile intercourse crime trial since Spain overhauled its laws in 2022 to make consent, or the shortage thereof, central to defining a intercourse crime in response to an upswell of protests after a gang-rape case through the San Fermin bull-working competition in Pamplona in 2016. The laws popularly generally known as the “only yes means yes” regulation defines consent as an specific expression of an individual’s will, making it clear that silence or passivity don’t equal consent.
Under the regulation, the crime of sexual assault takes in a big selection of crimes from on-line abuse and groping to rape, every with completely different punishments. Rape can carry a most sentence of 15 years.
On arriving on the courtroom underneath police escort, Alves shrugged his shoulders when requested by reporters if he thought he could be discovered harmless.
Alves received main titles with elite golf equipment together with Barcelona, Juventus and Paris Saint-Germain. He additionally helped Brazil win two Copa Americas and an Olympic gold medal at age 38. He performed at his third World Cup, the one main title he’s not received, in 2022.
Alves’ contract with Pumas was terminated instantly after his arrest.
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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
(This story has not been edited by News18 employees and is revealed from a syndicated information company feed – Associated Press)
