Former player Robinho, who is serving a sentence in Brazil for rape committed in Italy in 2013, appointed this Wednesday (29) lawyers Anderson Luna, Mário Vale and Bruno Cândido to defend him in appeals at the STJ (Superior Court of Justice) and the STF (Supreme Federal Court).
Luna and Vale are from São Paulo, and Cândido works in Minas Gerais.
The change imposes new directions on the defense strategy of the former athlete, who is also represented by the office of José Eduardo Rangel de Alckmin, cousin of the vice-president of the Republic Geraldo Alckmin (PSB).
Robinho has been imprisoned in Brazil since 2024, when the STJ (Superior Court of Justice) approved the effects of the Italian sentence that sentenced him to nine years in prison for participating in a gang rape against an Albanian woman in a nightclub in Milan, in 2013.
He was with five friends at the scene. According to Italian justice, the victim was drunk, taken to the establishment’s dressing room and raped several times. The former striker denies the crime.
The decision became final in Italy in 2022. As the Brazilian Constitution does not authorize the extradition of those born in national territory, Italy was left to ask for the sentence to be served in Brazil. The former player has been in a closed regime since then.
For new lawyers, there are injustices in relation to serving the sentence because, unlike what happens in Brazil, there is no definition that classifies rape in Italy as a heinous crime — a classification that directly impacts the criminal progression regime.
“Submission to a more severe regime [de prisão] in national territory raises questions regarding the possible extrapolation of the limits of the foreign sentence”, he told Sheet lawyer Anderson Luna. For him, the sentence must be served in a “fair, proportional and regular” manner.
The sentencing regime must be the main point to be attacked by new lawyers in appeals before the higher courts.
Until the end of last year, Robinho was imprisoned in the Tremembé penitentiary, famous for housing convicts in high-profile cases. In November, he was transferred to the Limeira Resocialization Center, in the interior of São Paulo.
Shortly before, in August, the STF (Supreme Federal Court) rejected an appeal that questioned the fulfillment of the sentence in Brazil.
