A Brazilian court has upheld an Italian court’s rape conviction for former Milan and Brazil striker Robinho, affirming that he must serve his nine-year prison sentence in Brazil. The trial, held in Brazil’s superior court of justice (STJ), supported Italy’s decision, with a majority ruling that the conviction was valid 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 discotheque.
This conviction was upheld by an appeals court in 2020 and validated by Italy’s supreme court in 2022. Despite living in Brazil, the 40-year-old Robinho, whose full name is Robson de Souza, has consistently denied the charges. Given Brazil’s usual stance on not extraditing its citizens, Italy requested last year that Robinho serve his prison term in his home country. Robinho’s attorney, José Eduardo Alckmin, stated post-trial that Robinho would surrender to authorities upon official notification of the decision.
Notably, the Brazilian court refrained from reopening discussions on the rape conviction, focusing solely on the validity of the Italian sentence in Brazil. However, Robinho expressed hope in an interview aired on a local TV station on Sunday that the court would scrutinize the merits of the Italian case.
