The former footballer Robinho was arrested this Thursday by the Brazilian Police to fulfill in the country a nine-year prison sentence for gang rape issued in Italy in 2017.
“The prisoner will undergo an examination at the IML (Legal Medical Institute), a custody hearing and will be sent to the prison system“, indicated the federal police (PF) of the city of Santos, near Sao Paulo.
The former striker, 40, will be transferred to the Tremembé prison, regarding 150 kilometers from the capital of Sao Paulo (southeast), a member of the PF told journalists waiting outside the police headquarters.
Robinho was taken by agents to the authority’s base in that port city, according to local media, minutes following The supreme court of Brazil denied an appeal filed by his defense.
His lawyers appealed to the Supreme Federal Court (STF) on Wednesday in the hope that it would suspend the incarceration order until appeal options were exhausted.
But magistrate Luiz Fux dismissed it and ordered that he began to “serve his sentence”, as dictated on Wednesday by the Superior Court of Justice (STJ) in response to an Italian request for the sentence to be standardized in Brazil for events that occurred in 2013.
The former player’s main defender, José Eduardo Alckmin, told local media that he will file an appeal once morest Fux’s resolution, with the hope that it will be analyzed by the full court.
The former attacker of the Brazilian National Team and Real Madrid He was convicted in Italy in 2017 for gang raping a young Albanian woman who was celebrating her 23rd birthday in a Milan nightclub., when he was a player for AC Milan. The sentence was ratified in 2022.
Robinho defends his innocence and He alleges that the relationship with the young woman was consensual.
Jose Eduardo Alckmin, Robinho’s lawyer, following the conviction. Photo: REUTERS
Why Robinho was not extradited
As Brazil prohibits the extradition of its citizens in its Constitution, the Italian Justice last year requested the execution of the sentence based on a Brazilian law that has allowed it since 2017.
The STJ examined the request for approval, which it approved by a large majority, without going into the substance of the matter or judging it once more.
Journalists have been waiting since early Thursday morning outside their secondary residence in the luxurious Jardim Acapulco condominium in Guarujá, near Santos.
Finally, the former footballer He was arrested in the port city, The Federal Police informed AFP, without revealing images of the arrest.
Only a short video was released, published by the Globo channel, in which the former Manchester City attacker can be seen. inside the police headquarters, on his back and wearing a light-colored t-shirt.
The judicial decision once morest Robinho coincides with the case of another Brazilian footballer, Daniel Alves, sentenced in February to four and a half years in prison for raping a young woman in a nightclub in 2022 in Barcelona.
A Spanish court on Wednesday authorized the full-back to be released from prison if he pays a bail of 1 million euros (almost 1.1 million dollars), while the appeals once morest his sentence are resolved.
The court’s decision was criticized by the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
“The money that Daniel Alves has, the money that someone might lend him, cannot redeem the offense of a man towards a woman he raped,” said the president.
Lula had also requested last week the imprisonment of Robinho, considering that he had to “pay the price for his irresponsibility” for an “unforgivable” crime.
The president of Palmeiras, Leila Pereira, questioned this Thursday the silence of the football world in the face of both cases, which considered “a slap in the face” to women.
The board member, one of the very few women in charge of a first division club in the world, is in London as head of the delegation of the Brazilian team that will play a friendly once morest England at Wembley on Saturday.
“No one says anything (…) This is a slap in the face for all of us,” she told the UOL portal.
