Alves says he was drunk on night of alleged sexual assault،
Former Brazil international Dani Alves has said for the first time that he was drunk on the night he was accused of sexual assault, judicial sources have confirmed to the EFE news agency.
If accepted as a mitigating factor when the case goes to court in February, it could lead to a reduced sentence if convicted.
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Alves' lawyer, Inés Guardiola, argued that Alves' level of intoxication impaired his cognitive abilities and left him unconscious of his actions.
This is the fifth time Alves has changed his story since he was arrested last January for sexually assaulting a woman in a Barcelona nightclub on December 30, 2022.
At first, he claimed not to know the victim. He later said he met the woman in the club's toilets but nothing happened.
The former Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain defender, when presented with biological evidence, changed his version of events, claiming that she had performed oral sex on him consensually.
Last April, after the results of other biological tests, Alves said for the first time that he had had sex with the woman, saying it was consensual and that he had lied to hide his infidelity with her. female.
Alves, 40, has been in pretrial detention without bail since his arrest a year ago. His contract with Liga MX club Pumas UNAM, the club he joined after leaving Barça in June 2022, was terminated following his arrest.
He will be tried from February 5 to 7 in a Barcelona court.
Public prosecutors are seeking a nine-year prison sentence. The woman's lawyers want him to spend 12 years behind bars. They are also seeking restraining orders against Alves after his prison sentence and asking him to pay damages worth €150,000 ($163,605) to the woman.
Under Spain's sexual consent law passed last year, the charge of sexual assault covers a wide range of crimes from online abuse and touching to rape, each carrying different possible penalties. A rape case can carry a maximum sentence of 15 years.
