The Court of Cassation in Rome, the highest court in Italy, rejected the appeal filed by striker Robinho and his friend Ricardo Falco, and upheld their nine-year prison sentences for group sexual violence committed against an Albanian woman in a Milan nightclub in 2013.
The sentence is final, there is no further appeal, and the execution of the sentence is immediate. With the conviction, the Italian justice system may request the extradition of Robinho and Falco, but it is unlikely that they will be sent to Italy, since the Brazilian constitution prohibits the extradition of Brazilians.
Thus, Italy may ask them to serve their prison sentences in a Brazilian penitentiary.
To do this, Italy must request the transfer of the execution of the sentence to the Brazilian courts and wait for the Superior Court of Justice to approve the foreign sentence.
But, according to the International Cooperation Secretariat of the PGR (Attorney General's Office), “there is no deadline for the process to be processed”.
Understand the case
The case took place in Milan, at the Sio Cafe nightclub, during the early hours of January 22, 2013.
The victim is an Albanian woman who, at the time, was celebrating her 23rd birthday. In addition to Robinho, who was then defending Milan, and Ricardo Falco, four other Brazilians were reported for having participated in the act.
As they had already left Italy during the course of the investigations, they were not informed of the conclusion of the investigations and were therefore not prosecuted.
The case against these four Brazilians has been suspended for now, but could be reopened, especially now that the Court of Cassation confirmed the conviction of Robinho and Falco.
Robinho admitted to having had sexual relations with the victim, but denied the accusations of sexual violence when questioned in 2014.
With information from Uol
