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Former Barcelona and Brazil defender Dani Alves has had a rape conviction overturned on appeal by a Spanish court.<\/b><\/p>\n
The appeals division of Catalonia’s High Court of Justice unanimously upheld the appeal by the 41-year-old and acquitted him, saying the case against him had “inconsistencies and contradictions”.<\/p>\n
Alves was sentenced to four and a half years in prison in February 2024 after being found guilty of sexually assaulting a woman in a Barcelona nightclub in 2022.<\/p>\n
The former full-back, who earned 126 international caps, was released on bail in March 2024<\/a> while his appeal was heard by a higher court.<\/p>\n The appeal court said that the ruling in the original court case “contains, throughout the reasoning, a series of gaps, inaccuracies, inconsistencies and contradictions regarding the facts, the legal assessment and their consequences.<\/p>\n “The complainant’s account, which should have been subjected to greater scrutiny, has not been compared with the fingerprint and biological evidence, which support the defence’s argument.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n