Tuesday marked the first five months of the entry of Dani Alves into the Brians 2 prison, in Sant Esteve de Sesrovires, accused of raping a 23-year-old girl in a private bathroom at the Sutton nightclub in Barcelona. Twenty-four hours earlier, the former international soccer star received La Vanguardia in a booth at the prison. He wants to give his version. To tell with his words his account of some facts that judicially point out to him as a rapist.
“I am not a rapist. I am not a sex offender. As it was not what they insinuated to me, those who threw bananas at me in soccer. I have the mental and moral strength to shield myself from injustices and stigmas."
Dani Alves (Juazeiro, Brazil, May 6, 1983) occupies booth two of the communications module. He is dressed completely in black and with a cap and backwards visor, which give him a kinder appearance than he used to exhibit on the other side of the bars. He smiles and gestures with one hand and with the other holds the telephone with which he communicates with the journalist, and with her eyes that he opens and closes with intention.
Without time to ask, he takes the opportunity to apologize to his wife, Joana Sanz. She does it publicly, because public, she assures, has been the offense. “I am certain that I was not wrong in choosing Joana. Although perhaps she was wrong about me.
Did you know the Sutton?
Of course. I know all the employees and managers and I thought they appreciated me. No one can say that in all these years they have starred in a single incident. My behavior has been exemplary. That's why I still don't understand how they acted that morning.
What is it referring to?
When the woman comes out of the bathroom after me, I stay for a while by my table. When I left the club I found out that I passed close to the woman who is already crying. I did not see her. If she had seen her cry I would have stopped to ask. And if at that moment someone in charge of the disco had asked me to wait for me because a young woman said that I had sexually assaulted her, I am not going home, I am going to the police station to clarify what has happened. I left calm. I didn't run from anything, or from anyone.
And he traveled to Mexico.
Clear. In some media they already said that a young woman accused me of sexual assault and I called my lawyer, Miraida Puentes, who consulted with the mossos and the courts and assured me that there was no complaint and that I could leave Spain with complete peace of mind.
The victim claims that he repeatedly asked her to let him out of the bathroom.
No. We hardly talk.
Who proposes to enter the bathroom?
I, I know that bathroom exists. We had been dancing very close for a while. We didn't kiss, but it was obvious from the movements and looks that there was attraction.
They are seen talking.
Yes, nonsense. There is a moment when we get very close and I propose to go to the bathroom. I tell her I'll go in first and wait for her. I came to think that she had changed her mind and that she would not go in because she was late. I was already walking out the door when I saw her approach. I stepped aside and she entered the space first and then the bathroom. I went in behind. I didn't even lock the door.
[It should be remembered that in the different judicial documents in which Alves' provisional release has been denied, the magistrates separate what happens previously in the private room, from the facts that the woman denounces. Alves' defense has used those previous moments recorded by security cameras, but to warn that the account that the woman gave in court does not match the images. There are no cracks in the version that the victim has offered in these five months about what she claims happened in those twenty minutes in the bathroom.]
She says he didn't let her out. That he threw her to the ground. That she slapped her. That he insulted her. At the hospital they found an injury.
None of this is true. But there with his conscience. At no time did he tell me to stop. He didn't even make any gesture of wanting to leave. The door was open the whole time, he could have left because I was sitting on the toilet seat the whole time.
And the woman's fingerprints on the mirror and sink?
[For the first and only time in the entire interview, Alves does not respond suddenly.]
I don't know when that happened. But none of those movements that she has said that I forced her to do are true and the scratch is from remaining on her knees during the fellatio. There is not a single mark on her body that explains the violence with which she says that I moved her in the bathroom.
She leaves the bathroom after you. She breaks down and denounces. Why do it if, as you say, it is not true?
Don't know. It occurs to me that there is someone who gave you bad advice. That he felt bad after doing it, that he took a step forward and that he has no longer known how to get out of the mess he has gotten himself into and the one he has gotten me into. I appeal to his conscience. There has not been a single night that I have not slept peacefully. I have a clear conscience. I have never willfully hurt anyone. And neither did she that night.
In a few hours he offered three versions. lied.
If someone has ever truly loved, if they have known true love like me, they will know that to keep that love, one does anything. And I lied. I was afraid of losing Joana and that's why I lied.
Didn't your lawyer advise you?
He had been waiting for hours in a dungeon. He didn't know where he was going, or what would happen to me. That was not the important thing.
But he lied.
Yes, but as soon as I told my wife what had happened that night and asked her forgiveness, I wanted to testify again and tell the truth. I am living a nightmare. I hope one day it will end.
Rapist is one of the worst labels one can carry.
I know, but even if I am convicted and spend my years here, I will walk out that door with my head held high and apologizing only to the one person to whom I owe my apologies, my wife.
I keep thinking about the 23-year-old woman, who has been out since then.
Me too and I often wonder why he did it. Was it really her who made the decision to report? Don't know. But my conscience is at peace, serene and calm. Only she and I know what happened and what didn't happen in that bathroom, those 20 minutes. Nobody else.
[In his first appearance before the examining magistrate, the victim waived any possible financial compensation].
