On the morning of Monday March 25, Dani Alves was released from Brians 2 prison, northwest of Barcelona, where he had been detained for 14 months.
Walking alongside his lawyer Ines Guardiola, his head was held high and he wore an air of defiance as he moved with confidence. It was very different from the way he presented himself during his three-day rape trial in February, when he proclaimed his innocence in a broken voice, with his head bowed and his eyes mostly blank.
Alves would have been released the previous Friday if he had managed to raise bail of one million euros ($860,000; $1.1 million) in time. He had until 2 p.m. and was even given an extra hour to avoid spending the weekend in jail. He finally provided the funds on Monday and local media reported that he threw a party that lasted until 5 a.m. at his Barcelona mansion to celebrate.
Alves was convicted of raping a 23-year-old woman on the night of December 30, 2022 at a Barcelona nightclub and was sentenced to four and a half years in prison. But now he has been released.
It is disconcerting that what was initially described as a key proceeding in Spain – the first high-profile case since the introduction of a new law intended to give more powers to prosecutors handling sexual assault cases – has taken this turn .
Alves’ case was one of the first sexual assault prosecutions in which everything seemed to be applied perfectly from the start.
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The Sutton nightclub, where the rape took place, did not hesitate to activate its anti-sexual assault protocol, despite a relationship with Alves, one of its regular customers.
The young victim, also encouraged by her friends, let forensic doctors collect the necessary biological evidence and filed a police report.
The police acted quickly and Alves was arrested on January 20. The former Brazilian Barcelona player was remanded in custody as he was considered a flight risk. Judicial authorities have highlighted his wealth and the fact that his native Brazil does not have an extradition agreement with Spain.
Alves remained in custody for just over a year until his trial. This was something unusual and rarely seen with a figure of his status. The sentence — although less than the nine years prosecutors requested — appears to be another important step forward. Lawyers specializing in sexual assault and rape cases interviewed for this article describe it as a progressive ruling compared to what has happened before in Spain.
But even then, some aspects were still uncomfortable – and that feeling has only grown stronger since.
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Firstly, it is surprising that, despite the court ruling that the damage caused during a sexual assault cannot be repaired with money, the magistrates still consider the sum of €150,000 paid by Alves before the trial as a “mitigating circumstance” when settling his four and a half year sentence. -a sentence of six months in prison. The family of Alves’ former Brazil and Barcelona teammate Neymar helped provide those funds.
The €1 million bail was set after Alves’ legal team successfully requested that he serve his sentence outside of prison while various appeals were filed against the original decision. It is still unclear who exactly helped Alves invest this money – or whether it came from his own funds. A Spanish media outlet suggested it was arranged through a Brazilian magazine which paid him the sum for an exclusive interview.
Rumors suggested Neymar’s family had once again posted bail, but this was denied by the player’s father in a social media post.
To secure his release, Alves also had to surrender his Spanish and Brazilian passports, and he will have to report to the Barcelona court every week. He is prohibited from being within 1 km of the victim and is prohibited from contacting her by any means.
Sonia Ricodo, a lawyer specializing in gender-based violence, says the decision to allow Alves to leave prison after he has only served 14 months of his prison sentence is not legally unusual.
She adds that the decision to release him – voted by the magistrates of the High Court of Justice of Catalonia by a majority of three to one – has everything to do with the likely duration of the appeal procedure. According to reports in Spain, this could last up to two years. Alves is appealing his conviction, while state prosecutors and the victim’s legal team are asking that he be punished more harshly.
“If Dani Alves had not been granted provisional release, he could serve almost his entire sentence while awaiting the appeal decision,” says Ricodo. “If he had subsequently been acquitted, he would have served a sentence that no longer suited him. This is the justification.
“Legally, it’s questionable. But this remains within the legal framework of what could happen. This is not something exceptional, even if it is a very disparate decision. These resolutions are always taken by magistrates, and we were not in favor of them.
“It will take a long time before the sentence is final because there will probably be initial appeals and then he can go to the Supreme Court.”
It is important to note that Ricodo also reflects on the impact these last weeks will have had on the victim.
“The trial is a form of closure and now, with all these new developments, it’s an open wound that doesn’t allow him to heal emotionally,” she said.
“Then there is the social message that you give: that this woman, after having gone through a very difficult legal procedure because of the media coverage, has not been able to breathe for a month. Now that Alves is out, the subject is coming back to the forefront and it will have a brutal effect on his healing process.
This is a powerful point. Justice seems to focus on the attacker and people seem to have forgotten the victim, who still cannot return to a normal life after the rape she suffered a year and four months ago, who had to give up her job and taking medication to cope. A victim who, at any moment, decided to give up any prospect of financial compensation in order to be believed. She just wanted a court to rule in her favor.
After this happened, how could she have expected this?
“For a victim, it is very difficult to understand that a few weeks after his conviction, this person could find himself on the street,” said Ester Garcia, the victim’s lawyer, after learning that Alves would be eligible for the temporary freedom.
She added on Catalan radio RAC1: “I am surprised and outraged, it seems that justice is being done to the rich. It’s a scandal that they let him go free, we will appeal.”
Once again, the legal proceedings have shown that freedom has a price, and in this specific case, that cost has almost no meaning for a player who earned 300,000 euros per month with his last club, the Pumas (who terminated her contract with him last January). and who, at one point, was earning 10 million euros per year with Barcelona.
Alves is still honored by Barca’s website as a “legendary player” despite being a rapist. His freedom didn’t cost him much. And he is now serving his sentence in his 500 square meter mansion, close to the city center. If prison is supposed to help reintegrate criminals into society, it’s hard to see how Alves will reflect on the rape he committed from there, partying until the wee hours of the morning.
In Spain, measures are taken, but they are very short. The phrase was modern, yes. There has been progress, yes. But it’s not enough.
Spain has experienced a great revolution this year in the women’s national team. The year of #SeAcabo, in which World Cup winners had to become social activists, put the country’s toxic football federation (RFEF) on the ropes while major Spanish sports media called their significant manifestations of “capricious”.
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The same RFEF they complained about is now under inspection for allegations of corruption and illegal contracts – all denied – while its former president, Luis Rubiales, also faces trial for his kiss of Jenni Hermoso. The prosecution is asking that he be sentenced to two and a half years in prison on alleged charges of sexual assault and coercion. No date has yet been set for the trial – and these are allegations that Rubiales has always denied.
It is also worth remembering that Rubiales was supported by all the presidents of the regional federations and defended by players like Dani Carvajal after what he did, in front of the whole world.
Spain has since shown that there may be a little more progress in women’s rights, but not enough to prevent a convicted rapist from serving his sentence in luxury.
Women’s rights remain on the back burner. The fight for a level playing field, for cases of sexual assault to be taken seriously, takes a physical and mental toll on women, while rich and powerful men continue to enjoy the privileges that are easily available to them.
(Top photo: Lluis Gene/AFP via Getty Images)