Alves, who won the Champions League three-times with Barcelona, was convicted last year of raping a young woman in the VIP bathroom of a nightclub in Barcelona in 2022 and sentenced to four-and-a-half years in jail.

But a Barcelona appeals court on Friday overturned the lower court’s ruling, saying Alves’ trial had inconsistencies and contradictions, and there was insufficient evidence to prove he was guilty.

The appeals court said the accuser was an “unreliable complainant” since her testimony “differed notably” from evidence of video footage taken before she and Alves entered the bathroom where she alleges the player forced her to have sex without her consent.

The public prosecutor’s office in the northeastern region of Catalonia said in a statement it intends to lodge an appeal against the ruling, without giving further details.

Hundreds of people rallied in Barcelona on Monday against the appeal court ruling, in a demonstration organised by feminist groups. Many carried signs calling the court decision “unacceptable” and calling for it to be revoked.

Deputy Prime Minister Maria Jesus Montero said on Saturday it was a “shame” that the testimony of a rape victim “is still being questioned” and that the “presumption of innocence is said to take precedence over the testimony of young, brave women”.

She apologised on Tuesday, saying she did not mean to call “into question the presumption of innocence” but reaffirmed her view that the appeals court decision to annul Alves’ conviction is “a step backwards”.

Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, a self-described feminist, has made the fight against sexual violence a priority.

His minority government reformed the country’s criminal code in 2022 to define all non-consensual sex as rape in response to the case of an 18-year-old woman who was gang raped by five men during the San Fermin bull-running festival in Pamplona.

Alves, now 41, was kept in jail since his arrest in January 2023 until March 2024, when he was released pending his appeal after he posted the one million euros ($1.1million) bail set by the courts.

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