Former Barça footballer Dani Alves testifies for the second time this Monday, at his own request, before the judge who is investigating him for allegedly raping a 23-year-old girl in the toilets of the Sutton nightclub in Barcelona, three months after being imprisoned for the alleged sexual assault.
Alves appears from 10:30 this morning before the head of the first instance court of Barcelona number 15, in the City of Justice, where he will be taken by the Mossos d’Esquadra from Brians 2 prison where he has remained since his arrest , January 20.
The Brazilian player, for whom the judge ordered prison without bail when questioned after his arrest, asked to give his version of what happened before the magistrate, based on an article by the criminal procedure law which allows an investigated person to testify as many times as he deems appropriate during his criminal proceedings.
Dani Alves, who will be assisted on this occasion by lawyer Cristóbal Martell, will try to clarify his account of the events before the magistrate, after in his statement of January 20, in which he was advised by lawyer Miraida Puente Wilson, alternating different versions of what happened.
During this appearance, the athlete initially maintained that he did not know the victim, later admitted to having met the young woman in the toilets of the discotheque without anything happening between them and finally, when the judge compared her explanations with the biological evidence, she maintained that the girl had performed oral sex on her, in a consensual manner.
The footballer justified the ups and downs of his story by arguing, first, that he wanted to protect the young woman and, second, that he wanted to hide his infidelity from his wife, model Joana Sanz, who announced last month on social media networks her intention to separate from him after eight years of marriage.
In the appeal he filed in vain to get out of prison – already signed by the lawyer Cristóbal Martell – the Brazilian athlete clung to the version according to which he had consensual sex with the plaintiff, without further details.
DNA tests confirmed that the young woman had traces of Alves’ sperm in her vagina, which contradicts the last version of the footballer before the judge, in which he only admitted oral sex.
Indeed, the different versions of the events that the footballer brandished before the judge and the contradictions between his account and the biological evidence, compared to the consistency of the victim’s statement, were one of the main reasons why the instructor agreed to his incarceration without bail.
After the defendant’s new statement, in which he will probably try to explain the contradictions assessed by the judge, the defense could again request the provisional release of Dani Alves, with the precautionary measures that justice deems appropriate.
On February 21, the Barcelona court agreed to keep Dani Alves in preventive detention, appreciating a “high” risk of absconding and considering that the evidence accusing him is “serious” and “diversified”.
The footballer is accused of raping a 23-year-old girl in the bathroom of a private room at the Sutton nightclub in Barcelona to which he invited her and two of his friends on the night of 30 December.
