Barcelona (EFE) after entering prison for the alleged sexual assault.
Alves will appear at 10:30 this morning before the head of the trial court number 15 in Barcelona, in the City of Justice, where he will be taken by the Mossos d’Esquadra from the Brians 2 prison, where he has been held since his arrest, on January 20.
The Brazilian player, for whom the judge ordered prison without bail when he was questioned after his arrest, has requested to give his version of what happened before the magistrate, based on an article of the criminal procedure law that allows an investigated person to testify as many times as he deems appropriate during his criminal proceedings.
Dani Alves, who on this occasion will be assisted by the lawyer Cristóbal Martell, will try to clarify his account of the events before the magistrate, after in his statement on January 20, in which he was advised by the lawyer Miraida Puente Wilson, alternated different versions of what happened.
In that appearance, the athlete initially maintained that he did not know the victim, later admitted that he met the young woman in the disco’s bathroom without anything happening between them and finally, when the judge compared his explanations with the biological evidence, she maintained that the girl had performed a fellatio on him, consensually.
The soccer player justified the ups and downs of his story by arguing, first, that he wanted to protect the young woman and, later, that he wanted to hide his infidelity from his wife, the model Joana Sanz, who last month announced through social networks his intention to separated from him after eight years of marriage.
In the appeal that he unsuccessfully filed to get out of prison – already signed by lawyer Cristóbal Martell – the Brazilian athlete clung to the version that he had consensual sexual relations with the complainant, without further details.
DNA tests confirmed that the young woman had traces of Alves’ semen in her vagina, which contradicts the latest version of the footballer before the judge, in which he only admitted oral sex.
In fact, the different versions of the events that the soccer player brandished before the judge and the contradictions between his story and the biological evidence, compared to the consistency of the victim’s statement, were one of the main reasons why the instructor agreed his imprisonment without bail.
After the defendant’s new statement, in which he will presumably try to explain the contradictions appreciated by the judge, the defense could once again request the provisional release of Dani Alves, with the precautionary measures that the justice system deems appropriate.
On February 21, the Court of Barcelona agreed to keep Dani Alves in preventive detention, appreciating a “high” risk of flight and considering that the evidence that incriminates him is “severe” and “diverse”.
The soccer player is accused of having raped a 23-year-old girl in the bathroom of a private room at the Sutton nightclub in Barcelona to which he invited her, along with two of her friends, on the night of December 30.