Ex-Man City and Brazil striker Robinho must serve nine-year rape sentence in Brazil

The former striker was found guilty by an Italian court in 2017 of taking part in the 2013 gang rape of a 22-year-old Albanian woman.

He has been living in Brazil, which does not extradite its nationals.

However, Brazilian judges ruled on Wednesday to uphold former AC Milan and Brazil striker Robinho's Italian rape conviction, adding that he must serve his nine-year prison sentence in Brazil.

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The trial in Brazil's Superior Court of Justice (STJ), the country's top court for non-constitutional matters, had a majority rule that Italy's decision was valid in Brazil.

Judges on Brazil’s STJ in the capital city of Brasilia voted 9-2 to validate the conviction.

A Milan court in 2017 found Robinho and five other Brazilians guilty of gang raping a woman in 2013 after plying her with alcohol in a discotheque.

The conviction was confirmed by an appeals court in 2020 and validated by Italy's Supreme Court in 2022.

The 40-year-old Robinho, whose full name is Robson de Souza, lives in Brazil and has always denied the charges. Brazil does not usually extradite its citizens, so Italy requested last year that Robinho should serve his prison sentence in his home country.

Robinho's attorney Jose Eduardo Alckmin said after the trial that Robinho would surrender to authorities when officially notified about the decision.

The Brazilian court did not reopen discussions about the rape conviction, focusing only on seeing if the sentence in Italy was valid in Brazil.

However, Robinho said in an interview broadcast on Sunday by a local TV station that he hoped the court would look at the merit of the Italian case.

"I was unfairly convicted in Italy for something that did not occur," he said.

According to Goal, Robinho recently claimed his nine-year prison sentence is a result of racism in Italy.

He reportedly told Record TV: “I was convicted in Italy unjustly for something that did not happen and I have all the evidence to show that. I played four years in Italy and I got tired of seeing stories of racism. Unfortunately, it happens today. That happened in 2013 and today we are in 2024, which leads me to believe that the same people who do nothing against racism are the same ones who they condemned at my trial.

“If my trial were for a white person, it would be totally different, without a doubt,” he added.