KUALA LUMPUR – One of Brazil’s most decorated footballers, Dani Alves, will be released from jail pending an appeal against his rape conviction when he posts bail of €1 million.
A Barcelona court today granted 40-year-old Alves a provisional release in exchange for bail but demanded he surrender his Spanish and Brazilian passports, remain in Spain and present himself to court weekly.
Previously, he applied for release on the grounds that he served 25% of his four-and-a-half-year sentence during pre-trial detention when he was arrested in January 2023.
However, prosecutors argued that Alves, who played for Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain, was a flight risk.
He was sentenced on February 22 after being convicted of raping a woman at a Barcelona nightclub in December 2022.
She accused him of violently forcing her to have sex in a private bathroom despite repeatedly begging him to let her go.
Although his lawyers claimed she was “glued” to Alves and there was sexual tension between them, the court disagreed, saying it did not mean “she consented to anything that might have subsequently happened”. – March 20, 2024