The young woman who accuses Dani Alves of sexual assault confirmed this Monday before the court that the footballer raped her in a bathroom at the Sutton nightclub in Barcelona and her fear of not being believed if she reported it, a version supported by her two friends.
In the 21st section of the Barcelona Court, the trial began this Monday against a Brazilian player, accused of raping a 23-year-old girl in the tiny bathroom of a booth at the Sutton nightclub in Barcelona where he invited her to dance with two friends of hers in December 2022, a case for which the Prosecutor’s Office asks her for nine years in prison and 12 for the private prosecution, brought by the victim.
” parallel trial” to which he has been subjected and because the police investigated him “behind his back” for weeks.
Allegations that the court rejected, after ruling out any “anomaly” in the defendant’s right to defense, although it did agree to the request of his lawyer, Inés Guardiola, that the footballer testify at the end of the trial, once witnesses and experts and know all the evidence against him.
The victim, the first to testify
In this way, the first to testify in the trial – which is scheduled to last until this Wednesday – was the victim, in an interrogation of just over an hour, the only one behind closed doors and between extreme measures to protect her identity and avoid his visual confrontation with Alves.
In her statement, legal sources explained, she maintained before the Barcelona Court the story that she has maintained throughout the investigation of the case: that Alves sexually assaulted her, with violence and a contemptuous attitude, after urging her to enter the hospital with him. narrow bathroom in the booth at the Sutton nightclub.
And she also reiterated, as she already did in the investigation, her initial reluctance to file a complaint against the footballer, convinced that no one was going to “believe” her.
A cousin and a friend corroborated the victim’s version
The version of the victim, who according to sources maintained her composure during the interrogation despite sometimes being unable to avoid sobbing, was corroborated by the two young women who accompanied her at the Sutton on the night of December 30, 2022, who testified also between tears.
The witnesses, a friend and a cousin of the victim, detailed that, since the presentations, Alves touched them with a “slobbery” attitude until making them feel “uncomfortable”, although they did not imagine that this could lead to rape.
According to both witnesses, the three girls agreed to enter the booth where Alves was with a friend after he invited them twice, through a waiter, to have a drink with them in that VIP area of the nightclub. Sutton, which has a small private bathroom.
Both indicated that they saw the footballer enter through the door that led to the bathroom – they were unaware that it was a toilet -, that his friend did so moments later and that after a quarter of an hour Alves came out and, two minutes later, the victim, with ” bad face” and urging his companions to go home.
According to her friends, the young woman was crying “heartbroken” and said that the soccer player had done her “a lot of harm,” but initially she was reluctant to report him while repeating: “I just want to go home, they’re not going to believe me.”
The days after the events, they added, the young woman remained in ‘shock’, still not wanting to report, and currently she continues to suffer anxiety, she barely leaves the house, she feels watched and has lost the “joy” that characterized her, since she becomes obsessive “with everything.”
Alves’ lawyer directed her interrogation to discredit the testimony of the two friends, whom she asked if the accused and the young woman were dancing “closely together” before entering the bathroom, if they smiled at each other and if their attitude was flirtatious, some questions that were raised without any type of restriction by the court and that the witnesses responded with evasions.
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