Ex-Brazil Footballer Robinho Arrested for Rape Sentence Enforcement
Former Brazil international football player Robinho has been arrested to begin serving a nine-year prison sentence for rape. The arrest comes two years after he was convicted in Italy for his involvement in the gang rape of an Albanian woman at a nightclub in Milan back in 2013.
Robinho, aged 40, was taken into custody at his residence in Santos, his hometown in Brazil. The Italian government had sought his extradition, but failing to achieve this, they requested that he serve his sentence in Brazil instead.
A Brazilian court recently upheld this decision and further ruled that Robinho must serve his sentence in prison rather than under house arrest. Additionally, a request to halt his detention was rejected by a Supreme Court judge on Thursday.
The decisive action taken by Brazil’s justice system has garnered praise from many in the local media, who had expressed concerns that Robinho might evade justice due to his fame and wealth.
Robinho, a former Brazil international with 100 caps for his country, was playing for AC Milan at the time of the crime. Despite losing an appeal in 2020 and Italy’s highest court upholding his sentence in 2022, he continued to maintain his innocence. Italian prosecutors subsequently issued an international arrest warrant for him.
In an interview with a Brazilian network on Sunday, Robinho claimed that the sexual encounter was consensual. However, the court found him guilty of rape based on the evidence presented during the trial.
