Dani Alves has even played football in prison: life in the cell of the star footballer accused of rape

Tomorrow, Brazilian star footballer Dani Alves, who played in the World Cup in Qatar, will try to get out of prison awaiting trial in the rape case in which he is involved. In the meantime, the former FC Barcelona player has been in pretrial detention for more than a week and details of his life in the cell, which he shares with an old acquaintance, are leaking in the Spanish press.

Dani Alves, the former FC Barcelona player who was sacked by his Mexican club Pumas, has been in custody since January 20 on charges of raping a 23-year-old girl on December 30 at a nightclub in Barcelona.

Tomorrow, the top lawyer Cristóbal Martell, who previously defended Lionel Messi, will do everything he can during an appeal procedure to get Dani Alves released pending trial, if necessary with an ankle bracelet. Martell will do everything he can to convince magistrates that his client will not flee to Brazil, with which Spain has no extradition treaties.

Alves, who was active with Brazil at the last World Cup, made contradictory statements about the facts – first he said he never saw the woman and then admitted that he had sex with her – but Martell now attributes that contradiction to Alves “fear of publicly revealing that he had been unfaithful to his wife.”

Heavy penalties for leaks

Meanwhile, details about Dani Alves’ life in jail are leaking out. He is held in a smaller prison, Brians 2 in Sant Esteve Sesrovires, which opened in 2007 and can hold 1,500 inmates. He’s in Ward 13, which mainly houses sex offenders, one of whom was convicted of having sex with a minor.

Dani Alves is not receiving any preferential treatment and no exceptional measures have been taken given his fame. Fellow prisoners would have been told that leaks to the press would be severely punished. It did not stop the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia from describing Dani Alves’ life in captivity based on multiple sources, including relatives of fellow prisoners.

Along with Brazilian powerhouse

Alves is in jail with an old acquaintance: a Brazilian known as Coutinho, who was once a bodyguard to ex-footballer Ronaldinho and a doorman in several nightclubs in Barcelona, ​​including Sutton, the nightclub where the facts took place. Dani Alves is said to have adapted very well to prison life and last Thursday played football in the courtyard with fellow prisoners for the first time.

According to La Vanguardia, he would have said to his fellow prisoners: “I will accept whatever comes. I had to leave my parental home at the age of fifteen and have already overcome more difficult situations in my life, I am not afraid of anything.”

Alves would have insisted to his fellow detainees that the sexual acts were done with the “consent” of the 23-year-old woman. She herself has stated that she was beaten and forcefully forced into sex “until he ejaculated”. Given the seriousness of the facts, Alves risks four to twelve years in prison.

Dress and underwear examined

Not only was Alves immediately placed in pre-trial detention because of his contradictory statements, the woman’s complaint is also considered very reliable at first sight. She has turned down a compensation offer from Alves, DNA samples have been taken, fingerprints have been found that would match her testimony and are inconsistent with Alves’ statements, and there are witnesses who saw her coming out of the toilets that night crying while Alves quickly got out from under it. Meanwhile, the dress and underwear she wore that evening are also examined. CCTV footage showed that they spent 16 minutes together in the toilets, something Alves initially denied. In the meantime, he has admitted to having sex with her and the crucial question is whether it was consensual or not.