The two girls who accompanied the victim of the rape of which Dani Alves is accused to the Sutton nightclub in Barcelona explained this Friday, before the judge investigating the case, that the footballer also approached them for sexual purposes . One of the women recounted, in her witness statement, that Alves touched her vaginal area while they were all in the VIP room, although she has refused to report the facts. She wrapped her arms around the other woman, the ex-Barça lateral -whom she has described as “a slimy man”-.
The cousin and a friend of the 23-year-old girl who was sexually assaulted have ratified the statement that, at the time, they gave to the Mossos d’Esquadra. Her account supports in part —they were not direct witnesses to the alleged rape because it occurred in the VIP area restrooms— what the victim explained about the events of the night of December 30. The three girls entered Sutton together shortly before 2:00 a.m. and were invited by some Mexican friends to the VIP area. There, a waiter – who has also testified this Friday as a witness – told them to approach the table where Dani Alves was.
The victim would explain later, in her complaint, that at that moment she did not know who was in front of her. The friend and cousin have explained that they did not know who Alves was either. According to the victim’s complaint, the player began to flirt with all three of her until he finally approached her, took her hand and brought it closer to her penis, at which point she moved away from her. The witnesses have explained, before the head of the trial court number 15 of Barcelona, that the 39-year-old footballer also made an approach to them. Her cousin came to tell her friend: “She has touched my pussy.”
The two witnesses were separated from the victim when Alves invited her to accompany her to the bathroom. None of the three actually knew that there was a bathroom behind the door. According to the complaint, the footballer invited him to cross the door. According to the player’s defense, the images from Sutton’s security cameras show how the former Barça winger was the first to enter and how, two minutes later, the girl followed him. What happened in the bathroom lasted 16 minutes, according to the court order that ordered Alves’ admission to prison, and not four as he had stated. That is where the rape allegedly took place, which was also accompanied, always according to the complaint, by beatings and violence.
a knee injury
During the attack, the friend explained that she went down to the disco’s toilets (she didn’t know there was one in the VIP area, she insisted) and that then she received a message from her cousin saying they had to get out of there. When she returned to the VIP area, there was no one there. They met in the cloakroom, where the victim was already crying. When they got out into the street, the Sutton doorman saw the scene and asked what had happened. The victim told there for the first time that she had had problems with a “very important” person. Although the three were going to leave, the worker – who also declared this Friday – invited them to enter and thus activated the protocol against sexual assaults. The two witnesses have added that they saw that the victim had a knee injury.
The goalkeeper is one of four Sutton managers who have also testified as witnesses. They have explained, among other things, how the protocol was activated. One of the waiters has confirmed that Alves told them to invite the girls to come to his table, a point that the Barça player had denied. In his statement before the judge on January 20, the Brazilian international gave up to three versions of what happened and only at the end did he explain that the victim had performed fellatio on him in the reserved bathrooms. She, however, explained that she was the victim of violent vaginal penetration. The biological remains ―such as the semen found in her body― and the medical report from the Clinical Hospital ―where she was treated― also point in that direction.
The Court of Barcelona must decide in the next few days if it admits the appeal that the defense of Alves, which is exercised by the criminal Cristóbal Martell, presented against the order of provisional detention issued by the judge. The Brazilian soccer player has been in a module for sexual offenders in the Brians 2 prison, in Sant Esteve Sesrovires, some 40 kilometers from Barcelona, since January 20.
