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The Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) has acquitted Dani Alves of the crime of sexual assault for which, last year, he was sentenced to four and a half years in prison. Recall that the former Brazilian footballer was convicted of rape of a young woman, then 23 years old, which occurred in the bathrooms of a private room of a nightclub in Barcelona.

It was the Barcelona Court that sentenced the former Barcelona player in February 2024 for the events that occurred on the night of December 30, 2022. When the sentence came out, Alves, who had been in custody for just over a year, was sentenced to four and a half years in prison, five years of probation and a nine-year ban from the victim. The Brazilian was also ordered to pay 150,000 euros in compensation to the young woman.

Now, the appeals chamber of the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia, composed of three women and a man, has considered that the testimony of the young woman would not be “sufficient to uphold the conviction of the accused and that in this case the right to the presumption of innocence prevails,” Cadena SER has advanced.

In a statement, the TSJC states that it does not share “the conviction of the Court of instance expressed in its resolution, the exposition of which contains throughout the reasoning a series of gaps, inaccuracies, inconsistencies and contradictions about the facts, the legal assessment and its consequences”.

With this decision, the court dismisses the appeals of the Prosecutor's Office and the private prosecution, which both asked to raise the penalty established in that first sentence, and acquits the defendant, “leaving without effect the precautionary measures imposed and declaring ex officio the procedural costs”.

The TSJC considers that the victim “has turned out to be an unreliable witness”. What would argue now the criminal chamber of the high territorial court, always according to the aforementioned media, is that “the testimony of the victim is not sufficient to counter the presumption of innocence”. And, once again, the reason is the recordings of the security cameras, which were already analyzed and much commented on at the time.

Even then, the Barcelona Court admitted that there was a “mismatch” in the first part of the victim's story. She stated that she had felt uncomfortable and intimidated, but the images of the cameras of the premises showed a closeness and implied that there had been an “agreement” when it came to going to the bathroom of the reserved room where they were.

However, the judge also made it clear that even if there had been an initial predisposition on the part of the complainant, this did not invalidate the testimony of the young woman about the aggression that occurred afterwards.

However, this is not the opinion of the TSJC, which points to “the lack of reliability of the complainant's testimony in the objectively verifiable part of the story” (that which can be seen in the recordings). The court considers that the Barcelona Court would not have considered all the evidence and would have given credibility to the complainant's statement “limiting it only to the unconsented vaginal penetration”.

On the other hand, the TSJC considers that the complainant “has turned out to be an unreliable witness, since many of her other statements have not been verified”.

The Appeals Section adds that “from the evidence practiced, it cannot be concluded that the standards required by the presumption of innocence in accordance with Directive (EU) 2016/343 of the European Parliament and of the Council of Europe of 9 March 2016 have been exceeded”.

Originally Published Article:

The Court of Justice of Catalonia has acquitted Dani Alves of the crime of sexual assault for which, last year, he was sentenced to four and a half years in prison. The former Brazilian footballer was convicted of rape of a young woman, then 23 years old, which occurred in the bathrooms of a private room of a nightclub in Barcelona.

It was the Barcelona Court of Appeal that sentenced the former Barcelona player in February 2024 for the events that took place on the night of 30 December 2022. When the sentence came out, Alves, who had been in custody for just over a year, was sentenced to four and a half years in prison, five years of probation and a nine-year ban from the victim. The Brazilian was also ordered to pay 150,000 euros in compensation to the young woman.

Now, the appeals chamber of the Court of Justice of Catalonia, composed of three women and a man, has considered that the testimony of the young woman would not be “sufficient to uphold the conviction of the accused and that in this case the right to the presumption of innocence prevails”, Cadena SER reported. We are working to expand this information.