Prosecutor appeals Dani Alves' 'irrational' acquittal in sexual assault

Spain's public prosecutor has appealed against former FC Barcelona player Dani Alves' acquittal in his sexual assault case last March. The judge considers that Catalonia's High Court took an "irrational" decision based on the trial and did not take into account all the evidence.

The prosecutor is now calling for Alves to be sentenced to nine years in prison or for his case to be reviewed by other judges in Catalonia's High Court.

Back in March, the court unanimously overturned the sexual assault conviction of footballer Dani Alves, who had been sentenced to four and a half years in prison for raping a woman in a Barcelona nightclub on December 31, 2022. 

He had been convicted by the Barcelona Court in February 2023, but was allowed to leave prison shortly after as he had already served a large part of his sentence. 

The High Court's appeals panel, consisting of three female judges and one male judge, said the reasoning of the trial court contained "a series of gaps, imprecisions, inconsistencies, and contradictions regarding the events, the legal evaluation, and their consequences."  

The judges also found the complainant to be unreliable in parts of her testimony.