Former Brazilian and Manchester City football player Robinho was taken into custody by federal police at his residence in the city of Santos. This comes after a Brazilian court issued a ruling for him to serve a nine-year jail term for a rape charge he was found guilty for in Italy.
The individual arrested on Thursday evening for a 2013 offense committed during their time with AC Milan is a 40-year-old soccer player known as Robson de Souza. Despite efforts by their legal team to postpone their detainment, it was ultimately unsuccessful.
In 2017, a court in Milan convicted Robinho and five other Brazilian individuals for sexually assaulting a woman after providing her with alcohol at a nightclub.
The verdict was upheld by an appeals court in 2020 and affirmed by the highest court in Italy in 2022.
Robinho has continuously refuted the accusations.
On Thursday, Robinho arrived at the federal police headquarters in Santos, where he began his career in the 1990s, at shortly after 8pm local time. Journalists and camera crews swarmed around the police vehicle which delivered him to the building, its lights flashing.
According to reports from Brazilian media, Robinho will undergo a forensic medical evaluation before his custody hearing. He is then expected to be transferred to one of the approximately 100 prisons in the state of São Paulo, where the city of Santos is situated.
According to reports, there is a possibility that he will serve his sentence in a prison located in Tremembé, a city known for housing high-profile prisoners, such as murderers and serial rapists.
Source: theguardian.com
