#robinho

A Brazil court on Thursday ordered the arrest of soccer star “Robinho” so he can serve a nine-year prison sentence for a rape conviction in Italy. He turned himself to police early in the evening and was taken to a prison in the city of Santos, São Paulo.

Robinho, who played in two FIFA World Cups for Brazil’s national team as well as in Europe for clubs like Real Madrid and AC Milan, was convicted of rape in an Italian court in November 2017. On Wednesday, Brazil’s Superior Court of Justice ruled 9 to 2 that his prison sentence could be carried out in Brazil at the request of the Italian government. (Brazil’s Constitution does not allow for the extradition of its citizens). 

The case is extraordinary because it’s just the second time that the Superior Court has analyzed a case of a Brazilian citizen who was adjudicated in a foreign country, according to a statement from the court. The court was given the power to validate foreign convictions in 2017 under Brazil’s Migration Law. 

Superior Court Judge Francisco Falcão said, “Defending that the penalty imposed in a foreign case cannot be executed here [in Brazil] is the same as defending the impunity of the defendant, which cannot be admitted under penalty of violating the duties assumed by Brazil at the international level.”