Dani Alves tells bail hearing: ‘I believe in justice. I’m not going to run away’

Former FC Barcelona and Brazil soccer player Dani Alves has declared before judges in Spain that he will not abscond if he is released on bail. “I believe in justice. I’m not going to run away and I will be at the disposal of the court until the end,” he said, according to sources present at a hearing held Tuesday. The soccer star, who was sentenced to four and a half years in prison for sexually assaulting a 23-year-old woman in the Sutton nightclub in Barcelona in December 2022, testified via videoconference before the Barcelona High Court to request his release pending the sentence being made final. Alves’ lawyer Inés Guardiola insisted that the player has roots in Barcelona.

In a hearing that lasted just 40 minutes, the parties presented their arguments on the request of Alves’ defense team for him to be released on bail. The prosecution has opposed the measure, having previously stated that he poses a flight risk. Alves is being held in the Brians 2 prison in Sant Esteve Sesrovires (Barcelona) and emphasized that if he is released he will remain in Spain until the matter is definitively resolved, expressly mentioning that he has a home in Barcelona, where he played from 2008 to 2016 and again in the 2021-22 season.

In the sentence against Alves, handed down on February 22, magistrates at the Barcelona High Court ordered the former player to remain in pre-trial detention. They undertook, however, to review his personal situation once his defense filed an appeal against the ruling. In the coming hours or days, the judges will rule on whether Alves will be released.

The law establishes that a pre-trial prisoner cannot remain in detention for more than half of the length of the sentence imposed in the first instance. As Alves was sentenced to four and a half years for sexual assault, the soccer player could remain on remand for a total of 27 months. But he has already been in jail for 14 months, since he testified before the examining magistrate in January 2023. So, in the worst-case scenario for Alves, he will have to spend at most another 13 months in custody; after that time, and provided that no final sentence has been passed, the judges would be obliged to release him.

The sentence against Alves has already been appealed before the High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSCJ) and it is foreseeable that, whatever the outcome, the case will be taken by one side or the other to the Supreme Court. The final ruling, therefore, could take some time to arrive. In the meantime, Alves cannot benefit from the rules that the prison regulations provide for prisoners serving a final sentence. One of these rules establishes that those who have served a quarter of their sentence are eligible — if they have shown good behavior and the technical reports are favorable — for furloughs.

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