The Spanish prosecutor's office has decided to appeal the sentence of the former Brazilian footballer of the FC Barcelona team, Dani Alves, to four and a half years in prison for the rape of a young woman, in the hope of obtaining a heavier sentence, AFP learned from a source on Friday judicial.
Dani Alves could receive several years in prison PHOTO EPA
The 40-year-old former player was sentenced on February 22 by a court in Barcelona to four and a half years in prison and to pay 150,000 euros to his victim, a young woman whom he raped in December 2022 in a club of night in this city, while the prosecution had requested a sentence of nine years in prison.
The court also imposed on the former Brazilian international five years of supervised release after his release from prison and a ban on approaching the victim for nine and a half years.
The court considered in its decision that the payment by the player, since the beginning of the procedure, of 150,000 euros for the compensation of the victim was a mitigating circumstance, Alves thus showing, according to the judges, his desire for “reparation”.
But this mitigating circumstance could be challenged by the prosecution on appeal, according to this judicial source, to the extent that this amount does not represent the same financial effort for Alves as for an accused who does not have the same resources.
According to this source, the drafting of the appeal has not yet begun.
Dani Alves' lawyers appeal for the acquittal of the footballer
The lawyers of Dani Alves, who denied that it was rape, announced on the day of the verdict that the former player will appeal, according to Agerpres.
Alves benefited from the adoption in 2022 of the consent law, intended to strengthen the arsenal against sexual violence, but which paradoxically had the perverse effect of reducing penalties.
Thus, in the case of Alves, the minimum sentence was reduced to four years, compared to six previously. In the face of the controversy, Parliament amended this law last year, but too late for Alves to be targeted.
According to the indictment, the acts took place on the night of December 30-31, 2022, while Dani Alves was with a friend in a VIP area of the Sutton nightclub in Barcelona, after returning from the World Cup in Qatar .
After offering champagne to the applicant, her cousin and a friend, he would have invited her to accompany him in a separate room that also had its own toilet, which she did not know. According to the public ministry, Alves would have had a “violent attitude” to the young woman, who lived a “situation of anguish and terror“.
Alves stated at the trial that the relationship was consensual.
One of the most decorated footballers of all time, Dani Alves had the most glorious period of his career at Barca between 2008 and 2016, when he won 23 trophies.
