Former Brazil footballer Dani Alves discovered responsible of 2022 nightclub assault in Catalan capital.
Brazilian footballer Dani Alves has been discovered responsible and sentenced to 4 and a half years in jail for sexually assaulting a girl in a Barcelona nightclub in 2022.
The highest courtroom in Spain’s Catalonia area on Thursday additionally ordered Alves, who had maintained all through that the intercourse was consensual, to pay 150,000 euros ($163,000) to the sufferer.
“The sentence considers that it has been confirmed that the sufferer didn’t consent and that there’s proof, along with the testimony of the plaintiff, to think about the rape confirmed,” the Provincial Courtroom of Barcelona mentioned in a press release.
The prosecutor had sought a nine-year jail time period for Alves. The decision could also be appealed.
The 40-year-old former Barcelona defender was arrested in January final yr and has been held on remand since then.
The case has attracted vital consideration not solely due to Alves’s profile however as a result of gender violence has grow to be an more and more dominant subject in Spain’s public discourse.
It has been one of the vital high-profile trials in Spain since a legislation was handed in 2022 that made consent a key aspect in sexual assault instances and elevated the minimal jail time for assaults involving violence.
Alves’s legal professionals weren’t instantly reachable for remark.
“We’re glad because the sentence recognises what we’ve been saying all alongside: that the sufferer was telling the reality and that she suffered,” lawyer David Saenz instructed reporters exterior the courthouse, including that his workforce would nonetheless analyse whether or not the sentence corresponds to the gravity of the crime.
Alves received greater than 40 trophies for Brazil and golf equipment that included Barcelona, Sevilla, Juventus and Paris St Germain. After his arrest, he was fired by his then-employers, the Mexican membership Pumas UNAM.