MADRID — A choose has determined to indict Dani Alves following an investigation into sexual assault accusations towards the Brazilian soccer participant, a Spanish court docket stated Monday.
The choose concluded the investigation and located proof of wrongdoing by Alves, who has been in custody since January on accusations he sexually assaulted a girl at a nightclub in Barcelona on Dec. 30.
Alves will probably be formally indicted after being knowledgeable of the choose’s resolution in court docket on Wednesday. Prosecutors will then specify the costs, and a trial date will probably be set for later this yr or early in 2024.
The former Barcelona defender has denied wrongdoing and stated that intercourse with the accuser was consensual. His legal professionals didn’t instantly reply a request for touch upon Monday.
Alves is predicted to stay in jail awaiting the trial. His bail requests have been denied as a result of he’s thought-about a flight threat. The participant had supplied to show in his passports and put on a monitoring system.
A choose ordered Alves to be jailed after analyzing the preliminary probe by authorities and listening to testimony from the alleged sufferer, witnesses, and Alves.
Alves’ legal professionals unsuccessfully tried to discredit testimony by the alleged sufferer and different witnesses by presenting safety digicam footage displaying that Alves and the sufferer have been flirting with one another on the nightclub. The court docket had stated that the flirting shouldn’t “in any way justify an eventual sexual assault.”
Under Spain’s sexual consent regulation handed final yr, sexual assault takes in a big selection of crimes from on-line abuse and groping to rape, every with totally different potential punishments. A case of rape can carry a most sentence of 15 years.
The 40-year-old Alves received 42 soccer titles, together with three Champions Leagues with Barcelona and two Copa Americas with Brazil. He performed in his third World Cup final yr in Qatar.
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