Football player Robinho to serve rape sentence in Brazil, court rules

A Brazilian court has decided to uphold an Italian court’s rape conviction for the former Milan and Brazil striker Robinho, and that the former star player must serve his nine-year prison sentence in Brazil.

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 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.

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.