Section 21 of the Barcelona Court closes the investigation into the alleged sexual assault committed by Dani Alves and sends him to trial. In an order notified this Tuesday, the court agrees to conclude the summary and gives the parties five days to present their statement of accusation or defense. The Prosecutor’s Office and the private prosecution, brought by the victim, will demand a prison sentence for the footballer that could reach eight years in prison. On the other hand, Alves’ defense will ask for acquittal, arguing that the relationships were consensual. Once this procedure is completed, a date will be set for the trial to be held.
Alves is accused of having raped a 23-year-old girl in the bathrooms of the Sutton nightclub in Barcelona on December 30 of last year and has been imprisoned since January. The 15th investigative court of Barcelona, ??which has been in charge of investigating the case, concluded the summary and Alves’s defense, now represented by lawyer Inés Guardiola, presented an appeal alleging that his right to presumption had been violated. of innocence and claimed the annulment of the proceedings and that the case be archived, an extreme that the court has ruled out considering that media pressure has not affected the investigation of the case.
The footballer’s defense argued that “the confidential nature of the proceedings has been continually violated” due to leaks in the media and that this has generated “a clear and material helplessness.” “The investigation has been aimed solely at obtaining evidence that could reinforce the criminal nature of the facts investigated, ignoring in an interested and misleading manner any element that would call into question the reality of what was reported,” he emphasizes. For all these reasons, Alves’ representatives consider that “when media dissemination is on a large scale, the contamination of the judicial investigation becomes irremediable and irreversible, and the violation of the fundamental rights that assist it is insurmountable.” For all these reasons, he believes that the entire investigation should be annulled.
The court, for its part, admits that the procedures that affect public figures “have an undoubted media impact” and regrets the existence of the so-called “parallel trials.” However, he emphasizes that these “attacks on the presumption of innocence have no consequences in the process and that in any case they must be repaired through another procedure for the right to honor that does not invalidate the current investigation. “In no way can it mean the nullity of everything that took place in the procedure”.