Former Brazilian footballer Robinho will remain in prison in Brazil, where he is serving a nine-year sentence for gang rape, after the country’s Supreme Court rejected an appeal for his release on Monday.
The court announced that the decision regarding the former Real Madrid and Brazil striker was reached by majority vote during a virtual session.
Robinho, 41, has been incarcerated since March 2024 at the Tremembé prison, located about 150 kilometers from São Paulo.
He was convicted for the gang rape of a 23-year-old Albanian woman at a nightclub in Milan, Italy, in 2013, while he was playing for AC Milan.
Initially sentenced in 2017, the ruling was upheld by Italy’s Court of Cassation in January 2022.
The Brazilian Constitution prohibits the extradition of its nationals, and when the former player—whose full name is Robson de Souza—returned to Brazil in 2017 during the trial in Italy, Italian authorities requested that he serve his sentence in his home country. Brazil’s Superior Court of Justice (STJ) approved the request.
Since then, Robinho has filed several appeals in an effort to overturn his imprisonment. The former footballer has consistently maintained his innocence, attributing his conviction to “racism.”
