Daniel Alves could leave in less than two years, says expert on the Spanish code – 02/22/2024 – Sport

Former player Daniel Alves, convicted of rape by the Barcelona Court this Thursday (22), could be released from prison in less than two years, says Spanish magistrate Ignacio González Vega, specialist in the country’s Penal Code and member of the group Judges for Democracy.

“In the best case scenario for Alves, he will be able to serve two thirds of his sentence and get out, that is, serve three years of the four and a half to which he was sentenced. As he has already been in prison for 13 months, there would be another 23 months to complete 36 months and have access to parole”, explained Vega, in an interview with Sheet on Thursday afternoon.

“To do this, he needs to meet a series of factors, such as good behavior and carrying out work and other activities during prison. To decide on suspending the execution of the remainder of the sentence and granting parole, the surveillance judge The penitentiary will evaluate the prisoner’s personality, his antecedents, the circumstances of the crime committed, his conduct during the execution of his sentence, his family and social situation, among other aspects”, said the expert.

According to Vega, Alves could return to Brazil during this period. And also during the five-year period of supervised release he was sentenced to after his arrest. “In these two cases, there is no impediment under the law. He could be prevented from traveling only if there is a specific prohibition against him,” he said.

The Barcelona Hearing sentenced Daniel Alves to 4 and a half years in prison for raping a young woman in the bathroom of a booth at the Sutton nightclub, in Barcelona, ​​on the night of December 30, 2022. He was also sentenced to serve another five years of supervised probation and to remain away from and without communicating with the victim for nine and a half years.

The court also determined compensation of €150,000 (around R$800,000), which had already been deposited in court, and which may have contributed to reducing his sentence by up to half.

The Brazilian’s lawyer, Inés Guardiola, has already announced that she will appeal the sentence with the aim of “defending his innocence until the end”. Two appeals are possible, the first in the Civil and Criminal Chamber of the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC). If the sentence is confirmed, a new attempt may be submitted to the Supreme Court.

Appeals like these, in which the defendant is already in prison, tend to move quickly through the Spanish courts, said magistrate Vega. “In both cases, the appeals would not be new trials nor would there be more testimony. They are just the confirmation or not of the sentence by higher court judges, who will observe whether the presumption of innocence and other legal points were correctly applied,” he stated.

However, explains the expert, while there are ongoing appeals and the final sentence is not confirmed by higher courts, Alves remains in pre-trial detention. This can bring you some disadvantages, as in general pretrial detainees cannot request temporary exit permits.

Even so, the former player’s legal team told reporters this afternoon at the door of the Audiencia de Barcelona that they will make a request for Alves to spend the Easter holiday at home on March 31. According to the team’s assessment, the low penalty imposed reduces the risk of the convict escaping, which opens up a new scenario. In fact, the sentence was well below the 12 years requested by the prosecution and the nine years requested by the Public Prosecutor’s Office.

One of the reasons the sentence was low was that the first version of the “Solo Sí Es Sí” law, or just yes and yes, was applied, prior to the reform that increased the minimum prison time to six years in cases of sexual assault in there is violence or intimidation.

Alves was convicted of a rape committed in December 2022, precisely between the approval of the law (September 2022) and the reform (April 2023). Hence, the first version of the law was applied.