Friend of alleged victim says Daniel Alves also touched her, says newspaper

Testimonials hitherto unpublished regarding what happened on the night of December 31 at the Sutton Barcelona nightclub were published this Tuesday (24) by the newspaper La Vanguardia, in Spain.

Brazilian soccer player Daniel Alves, 39, is accused by a 23-year-old of having raped her in the bathroom of the nightclub. He denies the aggression and, after two previous versions, went on to claim that there was a consensual relationship.

In the most relevant information released now, a friend who accompanied the alleged victim told the police, according to the newspaper, that Alves violently groped her and that he ran his hand over her private parts until she managed to get away and leave.

This statement coincides with the victim’s statement, who had said that, after entering the VIP area where Alves was, “immediately he started flirting with the three of us, sticking to us a lot and touching us.”

Among the people heard are also the friend who arrived with the player at 2 am at the nightclub, identified as a Brazilian chef.

According to the newspaper, he contacted the victim’s cousin through the social network Instagram and offered to “whatever they needed”. Prints of that conversation were given to the police.

These testimonies were part of the work of the Mossos d’Esquadra Catalan police between December 31 and January 20, when Alves was arrested in the morning after voluntarily reporting himself to a sexual crimes police station.

At the time, the police did not reveal to the player that they had already collected statements and that they had evidence that, in fact, a sexual relationship had taken place in the club – which Alves denied until being confronted by them.

But, after talking to the young woman in the early hours of December 31, and especially after the more detailed complaint was filed on January 2, police officers from the Unit Against Sexual Violence (UCAS) collected reports from dozens of people who had been to Sutton.

They spoke with customers, with the employee who called the police, with the nightclub doorman, who noticed that the young woman was having an anxiety attack when she wanted to leave, and even with the waiter, who twice insisted that the three friends went to Daniel Alves’ VIP area, as he was “a friend”.

This Friday, Alves’ team hired a lawyer specialized in criminal law to join the defense strategy. There is a time limit until this Thursday to file an appeal asking for his freedom.

Alves has been in the Brians prison since Friday, on the northwest outskirts of Barcelona, ​​pre-trial detained for risk of flight. According to the latest information from Barcelona, ​​he shares a cell with a “trusted prisoner” of the administration in the Brians 2 building, where other accused of sexual crimes are paying sentence or awaiting trial.

His contradictions during his testimony, in which he offered different versions as new evidence was exposed to him (description of a tattoo and images from security cameras, for example), were one of the reasons why Judge Maria Concepción Canton Martín decided to arrest him .