Former Manchester City and Real Madrid player Robinho was arrested in Brazil on Thursday after losing a last-minute court bid to delay serving his nine-year prison sentence for raping a woman a decade ago.
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.”
Robinho 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.
Photo: AP
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.
Brazil does not extradite its nationals so Italy asked that Robinho be made to serve his jail sentence in his home nation.
A court in Brasilia agreed on 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 was not caught on camera. The Globo network later aired a short video showing him inside a police precinct.
Robinho was to be taken to a prison in Tremembe, about 150km 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.
The player, who protests his innocence, told Brazilian network TV Record in an interview broadcast on Sunday that the sex had been consensual and he accused the Italian justice system of racism.
According to the complaint, Robinho and his coaccused 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.
A Milan appeals court in March 2021 found that Robinho had acted with “special contempt for the victim, who was brutally humiliated.”
Shohei Ohtani and Clayton Kershaw on Friday joined their Los Angeles Dodgers teammates in sticking their fists out to show off their glittering World Series rings at a ceremony. “There’s just a lot of excitement, probably more than I can ever recall with the Dodger fan base and our players,” manager Dave Roberts said before Los Angeles rallied to beat the Detroit Tigers 8-5 in 10 innings. “What a way to cap off the first two days of celebrations,” Roberts said afterward. “By far the best opening week I’ve ever experienced. I just couldn’t have scripted it any better.” A choir in the
The famously raucous Hong Kong Sevens are to start today in a big test for a shiny new stadium at the heart of a major US$3.85 billion sports park in the territory. Officials are keeping their fingers crossed that the premier event in Hong Kong’s sporting and social calendar goes off without a hitch at the 50,000-seat Kai Tak Stadium. They hope to entice major European soccer teams to visit in the next few months, with reports in December last year saying that Liverpool were in talks about a pre-season tour. Coldplay are to perform there next month, all part of Hong Kong’s
After fleeing Sudan when civil war erupted, Al-Hilal captain Mohamed Abdelrahman and his teammates have defied the odds to reach the CAF Champions League quarter-finals. They are today to face title-holders Al-Ahly of Egypt in Cairo, with the return match in the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott, on Tuesday next week. Al-Hilal and biggest domestic rivals Al-Merrikh relocated to Mauritania after a power struggle broke out in April 2023 between the Sudanese army and a paramilitary force. The civil war has claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced more than 12 million people, according to the UN. The Democratic Republic of the Congo-born Al-Hilal
Shohei Ohtani, Teoscar Hernandez and Tommy Edman on Thursday smashed home runs to give the reigning World Series champions the Los Angeles Dodgers a 5-4 victory over Detroit on the MLB’s opening day in the US. The Dodgers, who won two season-opening games in Tokyo last week, raised their championship banner on a day when 28 clubs launched the season in the US. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts shuffled his batting lineup with all four leadoff hitters finally healthy as Ohtani was followed by Mookie Betts, then Hernandez and Freddie Freeman in the cleanup spot, switching places with Hernandez. “There’s a Teoscar tax to
RSS