A Spanish judge ordered this Friday, January 20, the provisional detention of Brazilian footballer Dani Alves for the alleged sexual assault of a young woman in a Barcelona nightclub at the end of December, facts which he categorically denies.
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“Barcelona Investigative Court No. 15 today heard footballer Dani Alves, accused by a woman of an alleged offense of sexual assault for facts that allegedly took place in a Barcelona nightclub in December”said the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia in a brief statement.
“The magistrate decided to place him in pre-trial detention” of the player, as requested earlier by the prosecution, added the instance.
Leakage risk
According to a source familiar with the matter, the young woman accuses the 39-year-old Brazilian international of “rape”, criminal qualification that is part of sexual assault in the Spanish Penal Code. The young woman reiterated her accusations this Friday before the magistrate, according to this source.
The facts would have taken place in the toilets of a fashionable nightclub in Barcelona on the night of December 30 to 31, according to the media.
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Summoned this Friday morning to a Barcelona police station, the footballer had been “taken into custody” before being transferred to the Barcelona court to be presented before this judge, the Catalan regional police told AFP.
The court had announced the opening of an investigation for sexual assault on January 10, after the filing of a complaint by the young woman eight days earlier.
According to the source familiar with the matter, the provisional detention of Dani Alves was decided because of the risk of ” leak “ of the Brazilian player, and the absence of an extradition treaty between Brazil and Spain.
The player denies the facts
In a video message transmitted to the Spanish channel Antena 3 and broadcast on January 5, the player categorically denied the facts. “First of all, I would like to deny it. I was there, in this place, I spent a good evening with other people, but without invading the space of others”he said. “I don’t know who this young woman is, I don’t know her”he still assured.
“On the 30th, he went to dinner with his friends, to disconnect a little, he really needed it. He went out dancing and enjoying the music as he knows how. And that’s all. He did nothing wrong”said for his part his Spanish wife, Joana Sanz, in an interview broadcast on January 9 on the same channel, qualifying this information as ” nonsensical “.
Ex-player of FC Barcelona, Juventus and Paris-Saint-Germain, the most successful footballer in the world (43 trophies), Alves had spent a few days of vacation in Barcelona at the end of December after having participated in the World Cup in Qatar with the selection Brazilian and before returning to his current club Pumas de Mexico. In Qatar, the defender became the oldest Brazilian ever fielded in the World Cup.
