BARCELONA: Brazilian footballer Dani Alves was sentenced to 4 and a half years in jail on Thursday (Feb 22) for sexually assaulting a woman in a Barcelona nightclub in 2022.
The highest court docket in Spain’s Catalonia area 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 court docket – the Audiencia Provincial de Barcelona – mentioned in a press release.
The prosecutor had sought a nine-year jail time period for Alves. The decision might 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’ 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 probably the most high-profile trials in Spain since a regulation was handed in 2022 that made consent a key component in sexual assault circumstances and that elevated the minimal jail time for assaults involving violence.
Alves’ attorneys weren’t instantly reachable for remark.
“We’re glad because the sentence recognises what we have been saying all alongside: that the sufferer was telling the reality and that she suffered,” lawyer David Saenz advised reporters outdoors the courthouse, including that his staff would nonetheless analyse whether or not the sentence corresponds to the gravity of the crime.
Alves gained greater than 40 trophies for Brazil and golf equipment together with Barcelona, Sevilla, Juventus and Paris St Germain. Following his arrest, he was fired by Mexico’s Pumas UNAM.
