Brazilian judge orders Robinho to be jailed in Italy to serve sentence for gang rape

A Brazilian court has ordered footballer Robson de Souza robinhoThe 40-year-old, who has played for Milan, Real Madrid or Santos, enters prison to serve a nine-year sentence imposed by Italy for the gang rape of a woman in Milan in 2013. The Superior Court of Justice has ruled this Wednesday in Brasília, by nine votes against two, that the Italian sentence is valid in Brazil and therefore must be complied with. Robinho, who did not attend the trial held in Italy years ago because he fled before taking the stand, is currently free and has taken refuge in his homeland because Brazil does not extradite its citizens. But the Me Too incident and the Dani Alves case have changed perceptions about sexual exploitation and impunity here too. The Brazilian court has acted at the request of the Italian government.

According to the sentencing in Milan, the female victim, who was celebrating her 22nd birthday in a nightclub that night, was raped by Robinho and five friends. They made her drink alcohol until she became unconscious and sexually assaulted her in the cupboard.

The Brazilian court was not evaluating whether or not he committed a crime, it was about deciding whether a penalty was applicable in Brazil. The verdict says yes. The judges have also decided that the convicted person will enter jail immediately.

The Brazilian court’s decision came the same day that Spanish judges ordered that Alves, who has been in jail for 14 months, be temporarily released if he posts a bail amount of one million euros. You need to raise money. The case was widely advocated in his country. Alves received his sentence reduced due to the fact that he compensated the victim with 150,000 euros, which his friend and father of football player Neymar had lent him because his assets were blocked.

Robinho made a video which he posted on Instagram, where he has two million followers, on the eve of the hearing. In the ten-minute recording, he proclaims his innocence and gives his side of what happened that night. He says the sex was consensual and concludes that racism prompted his condemnation in Europe. Along with him, a friend Seo was also tried and convicted. The rest were never identified.

11 years have passed since the gang rape. The first sentence is from 2017 and was ratified in 2020. In 2022, Robinho exhausted all resources in Italy. Then the victim’s lawyer announced that they would ask him to finish it in Brazil.

The forward has always insisted on his innocence, but in 2020 esport balloon He published an audio that debunked that version: “I laugh because I couldn’t care less. The woman was completely intoxicated, she didn’t even know what happened,” he said in the recording, which was part of the summary. That exclusive ended his playing career by voiding his contract for Santos, the club where he began his professional career.

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