“I have a clear conscience”: imprisoned, Dani Alves still refutes the rape charges against him

2023-06-21 16:54:00

He persists and signs. Accused of rape, Brazilian footballer Dani Alves reaffirmed his innocence in an interview published Wednesday by the Spanish daily La Vanguardia, the first since his imprisonment in January.

This interview was published a week after the court rejected a new appeal by the defense of Alves, who asked for his release pending trial, motivated by “sufficient indicia of reliability” of the charges weighing on the player.

“I have a really clear conscience”

“I have a really clear conscience about what happened that night in the toilets of the VIP area of ​​the Sutton nightclub. What happened and what didn’t happen, ”said the ex-Barça and PSG player in this interview carried out in the prison on the outskirts of Barcelona where he is imprisoned. “And what did not happen was that I was able to force this woman to do what we did”, he still assured, reiterating that this sexual relationship had been consented to. .

The 40-year-old defender is accused by a young woman of having raped her at the end of December in the toilets of a fashionable nightclub in Barcelona. Prosecuted for sexual assault, a criminal category including rape in Spain, he was placed on January 20 in pre-trial detention because of a “high risk of flight” in Brazil which, like many other countries, generally does not extradite its nationals.

“I fought desperately to save my marriage from my infidelity”

Alves also maintains in this interview that if he changed his version several times, going so far as to affirm in a video at the beginning of January that he had never met the complainant, it was so as not to jeopardize his marriage. . “I was afraid of losing Joana (his wife), that’s why I lied. I fought desperately to save my marriage from my infidelity, not caring about the consequences I am paying today,” he continued.

This affair is closely followed in Spain, where this interview and the comments of the journalist who carried it out on the credit which she brought to the version of Alves on certain aspects, aroused an outcry. “Trivializing macho violence, supporting the aggressor, questioning the victim harms him and fuels the culture of rape”, reacted on Twitter the left-wing Spanish government delegate against gender violence, Victoria Rosell.