On Wednesday, Brazilian judges upheld the rape conviction of former AC Milan and Brazil striker Robinho, ruling that he must serve his nine-year prison sentence in Brazil.
The decision was made by Brazil’s Superior Court of Justice (STJ), the nation’s highest court for non-constitutional matters, with a majority agreeing that Italy’s ruling was applicable in Brazil. In 2017, a Milan court found Robinho and five other Brazilians guilty of gang raping a woman in 2013 after intoxicating her with alcohol in a nightclub. This conviction was upheld by an appeals court in 2020 and further affirmed by Italy’s Supreme Court in 2022.
Robinho, 40, whose full name is Robson de Souza, resides in Brazil and has consistently denied the allegations. Given Brazil’s customary policy of not extraditing its citizens, Italy requested last year that Robinho serve his prison term in his home country.
Following the trial, Robinho’s attorney, Jose Eduardo Alckmin, stated that Robinho would comply with authorities upon official notification of the decision. The Brazilian court did not revisit the details of the rape conviction but solely focused on validating Italy’s sentence in Brazil.
Despite this, Robinho expressed hope in an interview aired on Sunday by a local TV station that the court would reconsider the merits of the Italian case. “I was unfairly convicted in Italy for something that did not occur,” he asserted.