The player’s defense, whose first request to be released pending trial was already denied by the Barcelona Court in February, affirms that Alves “can and wants to defend himself and will not evade the process”, according to a statement issued this Thursday.
For her lawyers, who claim to base their request on the provision of video evidence that confronts the complainant’s story, the “risk of flight is unthinkable” and they propose the possibility of a bail being imposed and the withdrawal of her two passports ( Spanish and Brazilian).
Alves has been in provisional prison, communicated and without bail since January 20, for an open case for an alleged crime of sexual assault, which in Spain includes rape.
A young woman accuses him of having raped him in the private bathrooms of a Barcelona nightclub at the end of December.
The possibility of flight, precisely, was one of the reasons that the Barcelona Court argued to deny his first request for freedom.
On that occasion, the court did not accept other alternative measures either, such as the withdrawal of the passport, considering that, in the event that he traveled to Brazil, it would be very difficult to process his delivery to Spain, since the South American country does not usually extradite its citizens.
This new petition, now before the investigating court, comes shortly after Alves reaffirmed to the magistrate on Monday that he had consensual sexual relations with the complainant, in an appearance requested at his own request.
In his first statement, the day of his arrest, the player, who initially denied knowing her, changed his version several times and ended up admitting that they had had consensual relations.
The most successful footballer in history, with 43 titles, Alves lived the most glorious period of his career at Barça, between 2008 and 2016, when along with names like Lionel Messi, Xavi Hernández and Andrés Iniesta he won 23 trophies, but also played in teams like Paris Saint-Germain or the Mexican Pumas.
In Qatar, he became the oldest Brazilian footballer to line up for a World Cup.