However, Alves will be able to request leave for short periods from the prison near Barcelona where he is being held once he has served a quarter of the sentence and meets other requirements, a court official said. The court said that as well as the victim's testimony, it considered as evidence that she suffered a knee injury after Alves pushed her to the floor, as well as Alves' behaviour and hers following the event and the fact that she suffered aftereffects.
I still believe in Dani Alves' innocence. We haven't read the whole sentence yet because it's very long, but we are going to study it in detail now. We defend [Alves'] innocence. Even so, Garcia said her client was satisfied that Alves had been found guilty. Alves, 40, was arrested in January after being accused of sexually assaulting a woman in the bathroom of an upscale Barcelona nightclub in the early hours of Dec.
Alves had remained in preventive pretrial prison in Spain ever since, with a judge turning down regular requests for bail and deeming him a flight risk. The case was heard over three days at a court in Barcelona earlier this month, with Alves changing his story for the fifth time shortly before the trial began. At first, he maintained he did not know the woman accusing him. He later said he had met the woman in the bathroom of the club but that nothing happened.
The former Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain defender, when confronted with biological evidence, changed his version of events again, saying she had consensually performed oral sex on him. In April, following the results of further biological tests, Alves admitted for the first time that he had sex with the woman, claiming it was consensual and that he had lied to hide his infidelity to his wife.
Ahead of the hearing, Alves stated for the first time that he was drunk that night. The woman told state prosecutors that she danced with Alves and willingly entered the bathroom, but that later when she wanted to leave he would not let her.
