This time, there is no more possible recourse. This Wednesday, the Italian Court of Cassation upheld the nine-year prison sentence for Brazilian player Robinho. At the time of the facts, in January 2013, the one who played at AC Milan, had been accused of gang rape. Facts now confirmed as indicated by the victim’s lawyer. The judges of the third criminal section, meeting in Rome, “considered that the appeal lodged by the player was inadmissible and that the conviction is therefore final”, victim’s counsel, Jacopo Gnocchi, told the press. “In total, fifteen Italian magistrates considered that the accusations had been amply proven. Our wish is that Brazil carries out the sentence,” he added.
Brazil does not extradite its nationals
According to media at the time, Robinho and five of his friends allegedly made a 22-year-old Albanian woman drink “to the point of rendering her unconscious and unable to resist”. They would then have had “multiple and consecutive sexual intercourse” with her. A court in the Lombard city had found him guilty in 2017 of gang rape on this young woman and sentenced him to nine years in prison. This sentence had been confirmed by an appeal court in December 2020. Robinho had already been briefly arrested in England in 2009, suspected of having raped a woman in a nightclub in Leeds. Compensation of 60,000 euros would be paid to the victim according to Robinho’s lawyers.
Currently in Brazil, a country that does not extradite its nationals born in its territory, Robinho, 37, will find himself behind bars if the Italian authorities seek the execution of the sentence in Brazil. A procedure that should take time and requires that the Brazilian justice validates the sentence pronounced in Italy.
