Supreme Court Judge Luiz Fux rejected Robinho’s request for
a stay and ruled “the detention order is maintained… so that he can begin
serving his sentence.”
Federal Police in the southeastern city of Santos said in a
statement to AFP on Thursday night that their forces “carried out an arrest
warrant… against Robson de Souza.”
“The prisoner will undergo an examination at the (Medical
Legal Institute), a custody hearing and will be sent to the penitentiary
system.”
Popularly known as “Robinho,” the footballer was found
guilty by an Italian court in 2017 of taking part in the gang rape of an
Albanian woman celebrating her 23rd birthday at a Milan nightclub four years
earlier.
The former Brazil international, now 40, lost an appeal in
2020 and had his sentence upheld by Italy’s highest court in 2022, after which
Italian prosecutors issued an international arrest warrant for him.
Brazil does not extradite its nationals, however, and Italy
asked that Robinho be made to serve his sentence in his home country instead.
A court in Brasilia agreed Wednesday, by nine votes to two,
and on Thursday court president Maria Thereza de Assis Moura signed a document
paving the way for a warrant to be issued for Robinho’s incarceration.
Journalists flocked to his luxury condominium in Guaruja,
near Santos, but his arrest wasn’t caught on camera. The Globo network later
aired a short video showing him inside a police precinct.
Robinho will be taken to a prison in Tremembe, about 150
kilometers (95 miles) southeast of Sao Paulo, the nation’s most populous city,
a Federal Police officer told journalists.
His lawyers had filed a request to the Supreme Court to
allow him to remain free while challenging the latest court decision.
That was rejected.
‘Brutally humiliated’
The footballer, who protests his innocence, told Brazilian
network TV Record in an interview broadcast on Sunday that the sex had been
consensual and accused the Italian justice system of racism.
According to the complaint, Robinho and his co-accused had
made the young woman drink “to the point of rendering her unconscious and
unable to resist,” and then had “sexual relations several times in a row” with
her.
In March 2021, a Milan appeals court found Robinho had acted
with “special contempt for the victim, who was brutally humiliated.”
Robinho’s case and that of former Barcelona and Paris
Saint-Germain defender Dani Alves have sparked criticism over the failure of
football authorities in Brazil to condemn violence against women.
In February, former Brazil international fullback Alves, 40,
was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison for raping a woman in a
nightclub in Barcelona.
On Thursday, Palmeiras president Leila Pereira, the first
woman at the head of the Brazilian club, lashed out at the football world for
its silence on the twin rape convictions of Robinho and Alves.
“Nobody says anything,” she told Brazil’s UOL news site.
“It’s a slap in the face for all of us women, especially the
case of Daniel Alves, who paid for (his) freedom,” Pereira said, referring to a
Spanish court decision Wednesday to grant Alves bail of a million euros.
“Each case of impunity is the seed of the next crime,” she
added.
Robinho, for his part, will not gain his freedom quickly
because Brazil “does not allow bail” for the crime he is accused of, criminal
lawyer Leonardo Pantaleao told AFP.
Fall from grace
For Robinho, it has been a dramatic fall from grace.
Having begun his career in 2002 at Santos, a team made
famous by Brazil great Pele, he was touted as the successor to the golden
generation of Ronaldo, Rivaldo and Ronaldinho.
In 2005, he joined Zinedine Zidane, Ronaldo and David
Beckham at Real Madrid.
He went on to play for Manchester City from 2008 to 2010,
and for Milan for four years until 2014.
In 2009, he was briefly detained in England for an alleged
sexual assault of a young woman, but the charges were dropped after an
investigation.
He sought to return to Santos in 2020 but the club suspended
the deal after pressure from fans and sponsors, leading to the abrupt end of
his career.
At about the same time, TV channel Globo Sports had released
excerpts of a recording Italian prosecutors used to secure their conviction, 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.”
Robinho has 100 Brazil caps and 28 goals for his country.
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