The prosecution's arguments for challenging Alves' acquittal: it was "arbitrary," "cruel," and "biased."

BarcelonaThe Prosecutor's Office has already presented all the arguments it uses to request the annulment of the acquittal of soccer player Dani Alves for sexual assault to the Supreme Court. The Public Prosecutor's Office has already formally announced that it would appeal the ruling that overturned the four-and-a-half-year prison sentence, and among the arguments it made public this Wednesday is its analysis of the evidence. In the words of the Supreme Court Prosecutor's Office, the ruling that acquitted Alves was "arbitrary," "cruel," and "biased."

According to the prosecutor, the court made "a thoughtless and irrational assessment of part of the evidence" and ruled without taking into account all the elements available to it. Therefore, the Public Prosecutor's Office considers that "the court has committed arbitrariness." The Prosecutor's Office had already complied with the formality of announcing the ruling to the Supreme Court. that he would appeal against this sentence, and what he made public this Wednesday are the details of the arguments with which he will try to convince the judges to review the case.

In February 2024, the Barcelona Court sentenced Alves to four and a half years in prison after trying him for sexual assault in a bathroom at the Sutton nightclub in Barcelona. Just a few weeks after the sentence, which was not final, the footballer was released from Brians 2 prison thanks to a bail of one million euros and provided he appeared in court every week and without being able to leave Spain. Meanwhile, an appeal by his lawyer attempted to convince the High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) to annul the sentence, as he ended up doing a couple of months agoThis last decision allowed Alves to regain his passport and freedom of movement. The High Court of Justice concluded that the complainant's testimony was not sufficiently conclusive to support a conviction and overturned the first court's decision to acquit the footballer. The Prosecutor's Office is now seeking to overturn that ruling. It has also announced an appeal against the private prosecution on behalf of the victim.

DNA used to "disqualify the reliability" of the girl

A key element in reviewing the case will be the DNA traces of the soccer player found in the young woman's mouth when she reported the sexual assault. The conviction concluded, as the young woman had also explained, that at no time did fellatio take place. These biological remains, therefore, could have corresponded to saliva, and the amounts were so small that they could even have been due to having shared a glass, according to the forensic report. However, when the TSJC reviewed the conviction, it confirmed that fellatio did take place. In the opinion of the Supreme Court prosecutor, this was an "arbitrary" and erroneous interpretation of the expert evidence, which also served "to disqualify the reliability of the victim and her witness, and demolished all the combined evidence supporting them like a house of cards."

Faced with this situation, the Prosecutor's Office reminds that the court reviewing a conviction has the power to add new proven facts to the sentence, "but in no way arbitrary," as it considers to be the assertion that there was fellatio during the sexual assault, taking into account the results of the DNA tests. "The young woman was not lying, and to undermine her credibility or reliability for having lied by misinterpreting an expert report is irrational and arbitrary," the prosecutor reproaches, adding that the assessment made of this expert evidence is "completely arbitrary and cruel for the young woman, who is being morally condemned and converted."

"It would be going back centuries in consent"

A repeated expression in the TSJC's acquittal ruling was the "unreliability" of the complainant's witness. Aside from the DNA evidence and an alleged act of fellatio, according to the judges, her version did not match some moments recorded by the club's security cameras. Now, the Prosecutor's Office recalls that the conviction divided the complainant's account into three parts: what happened in the nightclub's private room, at the entrance to the restroom, and once inside. This division was made taking into account the psychological impact that sexual crimes have on victims, and placing the focus of scrutiny on the moment of the crime. "Certain inaccuracies in the two previous stages can only be viewed from a psychological standstill," the Prosecutor's Office reproaches, also warning of the possibility that the young woman wanted to "omit innocent actions that could be interpreted as nonexistent consent."

Therefore, the prosecutor criticizes the TSJC for dismissing the young woman's reliability due to details such as "having voluntarily gone with the accused to the reserved area when she had stated that she had done so under duress." The fact that it was voluntary, says the prosecutor, cannot be interpreted in any way as consent to having sexual relations: "It would be going back centuries in the assessment of consent. It would seem to be recovering the medieval postulate that 'a woman who consents to getting drunk with a man consents to everything.' That is not the case, she only consents.