Dani Alves alleges that the images of the Sutton nightclub cast doubt on the victim’s story and calls for his release

The footballer Dani Alves has asked the courts to release him provisionally on the grounds that the images from the Sutton cameras, the Barcelona nightclub where the rape of which he is accused took place, cast doubt on the story of the victim. In the appeal presented on Monday before the Barcelona Court, which EL PAÍS has accessed, the defense maintains that there are “certain weaknesses” in the evidence accumulated by the Mossos d’Esquadra against the former Barça winger, and stresses that the security cameras security of the dance hall do not fully correspond to the statements made before the Mossos and before the judge by the victim, a 23-year-old woman who has renounced the compensation that would correspond to her in the event of a conviction.

The objective of Cristóbal Martell, the criminal lawyer who defends Alves, is to expose elements of “doubt” that convince the three magistrates to release the Brazilian soccer player on provisional release, who remains in the module for sexual offenders in the Brians prison. 2. The lawyer encourages the magistrates to impose all kinds of precautionary measures that are less burdensome than preventive detention: appearances (even daily) in court, withdrawal of the passport, prohibition to leave Spain, restraining order of the victim and even the installation of a telematic bracelet to control their movements.

On January 20, the judge ordered provisional detention for Alves after hearing his statement and that of the victim. The magistrate granted full credibility to the woman, whose story she considered credible and consistent, and none to Alves, who changed his version “up to three times”: first he denied that any sexual encounter had taken place to end up defending that she had performed fellatio on him , which in any case does not correspond to the biological remains found in the victim’s body. The defense admits that it was an “erratic” statement, but justifies it by the fact that he did not want his wife and his children to know that he had had sexual relations with another woman.

The evidence, maintains Alves’ defense, “are not as obvious, forceful and devastating” as “biasedly points out” the report of the Mossos d’Esquadra and as stated in the order issued by the judge “in an almost uncritical or careless way ”. The “dispassionate vision of the images” captured by the disco serve, in Martell’s opinion, to “place in severe quarantine or value doubt some statements elevated almost to the category of proven fact.” Some of those claims are “inconsistent because they are inaccurate,” he says.

The cameras collect what happened in the Sutton VIP area, of which Alves was a regular customer. The player directed a waiter to invite three girls who were dancing—including the victim—to come to his table. Once there, according to the young woman’s account, Alves groped her and told her to follow him to the bathroom, where he penetrated her vaginally against her will and using her violence. There are no images of the moment of the attack in the bathroom, but there are images of the scene that occurred in the VIP room.

According to the defense’s analysis of the images, it is observed how Alves enters the bathroom door and, two minutes later, “after talking with his two friends and a waiter”, the victim “goes to that door without that Dani Alves clear the way for him or open the door for him”. The scenario of “terror” or “terror” described by the victim in her complaint is “disproved in the most radical way” by the images, always according to the interpretation that the lawyer embodies in her letter. “The images that are observed,” the appeal concludes, “combat and conflict and contradict the description made by the complainant.” This circumstance allows us to doubt, adds the lawyer, “that his account of what happened in the loneliness of the couple in the bathroom den could also be adorned with identical elements of narrative distortion.”

Rooted in Barcelona

The objective of the appeal is to demonstrate to the judges, in any case, that there is no risk of flight, which is the criterion for which Alves was sent to prison. The judge argued that, given his economic capacity, the high sentence associated with the rape (between 4 and 12 years) and his nationality (there is no extradition agreement with Brazil), the international could have the intention of giving himself up. The escape. Martell assures that this will not happen and offers what in her opinion are sufficient guarantees.

Alves, recalls the appeal, voluntarily came from Mexico —where he was a member of Pumas— to testify at a Mossos d’Esquadra police station. Alves arrived in Barcelona on January 17, actually coming from Santa Cruz de Tenerife, where a few days before he had attended the funeral of his mother-in-law. The defense adds that he has “personal, family, social and business roots” in Barcelona and that he lives with Joana Sanz in a house he owns in Esplugues de Llobregat. The defense also denies that Alves has an “economic muscle” that allows him to leave the country, and cites precisely the decision of Pumas to terminate his contract when he transcended his entry into provisional prison. The letter adds that “several companies have terminated the sponsorship, publicity and image contracts” that they had signed with the player.