Robinho must serve rape sentence in Brazil, court rules

The majority of judges on a Brazilian court dominated on Wednesday to uphold an Italian court’s rape conviction for former AC Milan and Brazil striker Robinho, including he must serve the nine-year jail sentence in Brazil.

Judges on Brazil’s Superior Court of Justice voted 9-2 to validate the conviction of the previous Real Madrid and Manchester City striker.

The 40-year-old Robinho was sentenced in Italy to 9 years in jail for his half in a gaggle sexual assault in 2013 when he performed for AC Milan.

Brazil would not extradite nationals, which led Italy to hunt his imprisonment in his dwelling nation.

One of the weather determined by Brazil’s superior court of justice — a 15-judge panel in the capital Brasilia — is whether or not Robinho matches into the South American nation’s immigration legislation authorised in 2017.

Robinho’s lawyer José Eduardo Rangel de Alckim stated he’ll attraction the decsion to the Brazil’s Supreme Court and he’ll ask for the participant to remain out of jail through the attraction course of.

“Robinho is available and willing to appear anytime before the judges. If an officer gets there, he will comply. He will not oppose,” Alckim stated.

“Our first concern is to suspend the immediate arrest order. We will ask for the sentence to be executed after the appeal decision has been made.”

The first decide to vote, Francisco Falcão, stated Robinho ought to serve his sentence in Brazil. He added that the previous participant can’t go unpunished and that diplomatic friction between Brazil and Italy may emerge if the sentence shouldn’t be served.

“There’s no obstacle to validate the execution of his sentence. It was confirmed by a court in Milan, which is the competent authority in this case,” Falcão stated. “The conviction is final. The defendant was not put on trial in absence in Italy, he had representation.”

Robinho lives in Santos, outdoors Sao Paulo. He relinquished his passport to Brazilian authorities in March 2023. He continues to disclaim any wrongdoing and insists his sexual relations with the lady at a Milan bar had been consensual.

Lawyer Jacopo Gnocchi, who represented the sufferer, stated he and his shopper had been glad by the Brazil court’s ruling

“We believe that this is the fair conclusion of a case that took place in Italy, with assurances for all the defendants who were then found guilty,” Gnocchi instructed Brazilian information web site UOL.

“We respected and we understood that the Brazilian Constitution does not allow the extradition (of its own citizens), but that does not change the fact that when the sentence is final it is fair… that the sentence is applied.”

Information from Reuters and The Associated Press was used in this story.