The Barcelona Prosecutor’s Office has opposed releasing Dani Alves on provisional release, as his defense requested last week, considering that the risk of the footballer trying to flee to evade justice persists.
According to sources from the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the prosecutor in the case has submitted a report to the Barcelona Investigating Court number 15 in which she maintains that the circumstances have not changed with respect to January 20, when Alves entered prison accused of raping to a young woman at the Sutton nightclub, so the flight risk remains.
After obtaining the position of the parties, the investigating magistrate must now decide whether to agree to the request of Alves’ defense and release him on provisional release, with the precautionary measures she deems appropriate, a resolution that may be appealed before the Barcelona Court .
Last week Alves’ defense asked the judge who is investigating him for the alleged rape to release him provisionally, if necessary on bail, based on an expert report on the images from the nightclub’s security cameras that ensures that they excuse him.
In the brief, the lawyers for soccer player Cristóbal Martell and Arnau Xumetra argue that these images would show that the defendant and the victim were flirting before the facts, dancing and drinking together, and that she voluntarily entered the bathroom after Alves did. .
Specifically, the lawyers argue that the 200-page expert report, which analyzes the images frame by frame, denies the “microcosm of panic and terror” reported by the victim and points out that the twenty minutes they spent together before entering into the bathroom “were characteristic of a sexual flirtation”.
They also argue that the images recorded by the security cameras of the private room contradict the testimony of the two friends who accompanied the complainants, who explained to the judge that the soccer player approached them with obvious sexual intent to make them feel uncomfortable.
Alves presented his request for release after declaring for the second time before the investigating magistrate, this time at his own request, in an appearance on April 17.
The Brazilian soccer player alleged before the judge that he had consensual sex with the complainant and that he lied in his first statement to hide his infidelity from his wife.
On February 21, the Court of Barcelona already rejected those same arguments adduced by the defense in its appeal -based on the roots and on the images of the security cameras- when it decided to keep the footballer in preventive detention, appreciating a “high ” risk of flight and consider that the indications that accuse him are “severe” and “various”.
