Former FC Barcelona player Dani Alves will go to prison. The Mossos d'Esquadra Catalan police summoned him this morning, and he has been arrested, accused of a crime of sexual assault reported by a 23-year-old girl, during the Christmas holidays -—the night of the 30th to 31st December— in the Sutton nightclub in Barcelona. Investigators from the Catalan police Central Sexual Assault Unit (CSAU) questioned him —although what he said has not been revealed— and he has been arrested. Now, far from Catalonia, the almost 40-year-old footballer plays for Pumas in Mexico as a midfielder.
After his arrest, Alves was taken in a police vehicle to the Ciutat de la Justícia judicial complex, where he was received by the judge in charge of the case. The arrest was made official at ten o'clock in the morning, and at around one o'clock in the afternoon, after being in the Ciutat de la Justícia cells, he was transferred to the investigating court No. 15, which finally agreed to send him to prison, a decision which was announced a few minutes before six o'clock in the afternoon. The judge investigating this alleged sexual assault agreed to send him to prison without bail, following the request made by the Public Prosecutor's Office and the girl's defence, which was provisional imprisonment without bail, due to the alleged risk of him fleeing Spain.
The complaint against Alves: sexual assault at the Sutton nightclub
According to the complaint filed by the 23-year-old against the former FC Barcelona player, who had recently returned from Qatar, where he played for Brazil in the World Cup, Dani Alves touched her under her clothes in one of the VIP area toilets in the Barcelona nightclub, without her consent, and sexually assaulted her. The victim reported the incident to the club's security staff, who alerted the Mossos. The Catalan police listened to the young woman's statement and opened informative proceedings, pending the complaint, and transferred her to Hospital Clínic, as per protocol.
Days later, on January 2nd, she filed a complaint at a Mossos police station. The Catalan police transferred the investigation to the Central Sexual Assault Unit, which is the central unit that investigates sexual assaults of unknown aggressor or assaults of complicated investigation. The Mossos' report includes the woman's statement and possibly the footballer's statement —who assures that he does not know her at all and has denied the facts—, as well as other details and indications that may have been collected during the almost 20 days that the investigation has lasted for, led by this special unit of the Catalan police.
The police and judicial proceedings will now continue, with the footballer in prison, in order to clarify the facts and, if the head of Barcelona's investigating court No. 15 deems it appropriate, bring Dani Alves to trial for sexual assault. At the same time, what motivated the Mossos' summon, the arrest and the rapid bringing of the Brazilian footballer before the judge will also have to be clarified. In less than six hours he was arrested, handed over to the judge and sent to prison; a situation that is not common at all in arrests made by the Mossos d'Esquadra police, whether for this type of crime or others.