May 8, 2023, 20:12 PM
May 8, 2023, 20:12 PM
The Colombian soccer player of Boca Juniors, Sebastián Villa, said on Monday that he was innocent of the accusation of injuries to his ex-partner Daniela Cortés and having been the victim of aggression by the complainant, when declaring in another hearing of the trial that is being followed in Buenos Aires.
“I called (the former coach of the xeneizes, Miguel Ángel) Russo and I told her that she assaulted me“, he said before the judge in the case, Claudia Dávalos, according to the version released by the local press.
Villa, 26 years old, is accused of gender violence under the charges of “minor injuries aggravated by the bond and by mediating gender violence, with coercive threats.”
The penal code contemplates penalties of one to six years in prison for such crimes. The process specifically addresses the events that occurred on April 27, 2020, in the middle of a fight that included shouting and threats, although the woman said she had been a victim of abuse on numerous occasions between 2018 and 2020.
On Sunday the midfielder played for the Auriazules of the Argentine soccer superclassic for the League tournament, with a 1-0 defeat against River Plate at the Monumental stadium.
“Seeing my mom crying is very hard. I am not a bad person, I respect the women in my family. Now they shout things at me on the pitch that I am not,” he said at the hearing.
During the match, the River fans provoked the player by singing “Villa goes to jail” and “it’s the rapist’s team.”
Cortés, also Colombian, had declared at the time by videoconference from the city of Medellín, where she currently lives, that Villa “began to drink alcohol and became more violent every day.”
The complainant added that abuse worsened during the pandemic when they lived in a house in a private neighborhood on the outskirts of Buenos Aires.
“I gave everything (to Cortés) and even I paid for an operation”Villa defended himself.
Cortés had noted in his statement: “He hits me in the forehead, he kicks me in the stomachin the leg, in the thigh”.
“She is very manipulative and very jealous. He wanted me to give him my (credit) cards and we would fight about it, I told him no. He scratched me, I wore long sleeves out of shame, so that my colleagues would not see that they beat me at home, “Villa said in the court session on Monday.
Cortés had pointed out: “After he left (from the house where they lived), I talked to my parents and that’s when I decided to make the public complaintbecause I feared for my family and my daughter”, the result of a previous couple.
