Madrid (Spain), 28 Mar. (LaPresse) – Brazilian footballer Dani Alves has won his appeal against his first-degree conviction for rape. The Appeals Section of the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia has acquitted the athlete and cancelled the precautionary measures imposed, the Court itself reports in a statement. Alves had been sentenced to 4 years and 6 months in prison on charges of raping a girl in a Barcelona nightclub on 31 December 2022. In its ruling, the Court referred to a ‘lack of reliability’ in the woman's testimony and considered that there was not ‘sufficient evidence’ to exclude Alves' presumption of innocence. The Court rejected the appeals of the Public Prosecutor's Office, which requested the partial annulment of the sentence and, alternatively, an increase of the sentence to 9 years, and of the private prosecution, which requested an increase of the sentence to 12 years. Alves spent 14 months in prison as a precautionary measure after being arrested in January 2023, and was released on bail in March last year.
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