Robinho wore no handcuffs when he left his apartment building in Santos on Wednesday night, 20 March 2024. He climbed into a black police car, spent his first hours in custody at the local federal police office, and was driven almost 200 kilometers (124 miles) to the Tremembe penitentiary. He arrived early Friday, 22 March.
The 40-year-old former striker will serve a nine-year sentence for rape, imposed by an Italian court and ruled valid in Brazil by judges in Brasilia on Wednesday. The Superior Court of Justice (STJ) made that ruling.
How an Italian sentence ended up in a Brazilian cell
A Milan court found Robinho and five other Brazilians guilty in 2017 of gang raping an Albanian woman in a night club in 2013, when he played for AC Milan. The woman said the men made her drink “to the point of rendering her unconscious and unable to resist” before having “sexual relations several times in a row” with her. An appeals court confirmed the conviction in 2020, and Italy’s Supreme Court validated it in 2022.
By the time of the verdict Robinho was back in Brazil. Brazil does not extradite its own nationals, but it lets convictions from foreign courts be served at home, so Italy asked last year for him to serve the term there.
Robinho has always denied the charges. In an interview with TV Record this week he called the sex “consensual” and accused the Italian justice system of “racism.” “I never denied [the encounter],” he said. “I could have denied it because my DNA was not there, but I’m not a liar.” Globo Sports had released excerpts in 2020 of a recording used by Italian prosecutors, in which Robinho purportedly said: “I’m laughing because I don’t care. The woman was completely drunk. She doesn’t even know what happened.” In March 2021 the Milan court wrote that he had acted with “special contempt for the victim, who was brutally humiliated.”
Inside Tremembe
The prison, 150 kilometers (93 miles) northeast of Sao Paulo, holds about 430 inmates. Robinho will spend his first 10 days alone in his cell, a standard safety measure for newly arrived rapists, local authorities said. Cells measure from eight to 15 square meters, and up to six inmates share the largest. The site has soccer pitches, an ecumenical room and a library. Visitors are allowed only at weekends.
Robinho is expected to serve at least 40% of his sentence. Brazilian law allows a more flexible regime for good behavior, and he will qualify in 2027, when almost half of the term has been served. His appeal at the Brazilian Supreme Court, seeking a retrial on grounds of national sovereignty, is still pending. His lawyer, José Eduardo Alckmin, told reporters the result should come in April.
In a video shared by local authorities, Robinho said: “I informed them I was ready to go there.” He added that his three children would be cared for by their mother. He gave up his passport a year ago. The custody hearing required by Brazilian law lasted three minutes.
Brazil’s new coach, Dorival Júnior, who trained Robinho at Santos, spoke about him before the team’s friendly against England at Wembley. “It is a hard moment,” he said, and then: “If there’s a real proof of some kind of crime, he has to be penalized.”
Sources
- Robinho must serve Italian rape sentence in Brazil: court
- Brazil: Former striker Robinho begins 9-year jail term for rape in rural penitentiary | Africanews
