Robinho publishes video in which he refutes rape accusation – 03/19/2024 – Sport

Former football player Robson de Souza, aka Robinho, 40, published a video on his social networks in which he showed photos and prints that, according to him, would prove his innocence in relation to the rape case of a woman of Albanian origin in 2013 The Brazilian was sentenced in Italy to nine years in prison and there is no longer any appeal against the decision in the European country.

This Wednesday (20), the STJ (Superior Court of Justice) must decide whether to accept Italy’s request for the former athlete to serve his sentence in Brazil. Initially, the European country demanded Robinho’s extradition, but legislation prevents this from happening to native Brazilians.

In the video, Robinho repeats the same arguments he used in an interview with TV Record broadcast on Sunday (17), saying that the evidence they have that would prove his innocence was not considered in the trial that took place in Italy. According to him, the conviction stems from a racist stance by the Italian justice system.

“My hope is that here in Brazil I can have the right to defend myself”, says the former player. His first conviction was in 2017 and he appealed and had his attempts exhausted in 2022, with a final judgment.

With spells at Santos, Real Madrid, Manchester City, Milan and the Brazilian national team, the former striker recounts in the video what it would have been like the night the rape for which he was convicted in Italy occurred. He says he was in a nightclub in Milan with friends and family and that, after his wife left the place, the woman who accuses him approached him.

According to this version, they then went together to a more private place, where sexual intercourse took place consensually, argues Robinho. He says it was an open place and that security guards and other customers at the nightclub could notice if something wrong was happening there.

The Brazilian also confronts the version considered by the Italian court that the woman was unconscious when they had sex. “I was accused of having had an encounter with a woman while she was unconscious. It’s not true. She was dancing and talking normally”, says Robinho, who presents in the publication what would be a toxicological test that, according to him, would prove that the woman I wouldn’t be drunk.

Despite having always publicly denied the crime, the Italian police recorded the former athlete’s conversations with friends in which he confirmed the victim’s unconscious state. “That’s why I’m laughing, I don’t care. The girl was extremely drunk, she doesn’t even know who I am,” said the former player.

The recordings were part of the material used by the Italian Public Ministry in the process that convicted the Brazilian of gang rape.

According to the Public Prosecutor’s Office investigation, Robinho and five other friends committed group sexual violence against the victim, who was drunk by them and, unconscious, taken to the establishment’s dressing room, where she was raped several times.

Ricardo Falco, a friend of the player, was also convicted. Because they left Italy during the investigation, the other four men could not be notified, and their case was removed from the process.

In the video published this Monday (18), the Brazilian says that, after suffering the abuse, the woman would have gone to another nightclub together with the former player’s five friends who would also have participated in the criminal act. “A woman who has this type of violence withdraws, is disgusted by the people who did this, wants to call the police. That’s not what happened.”

Robinho adds that, in the face of “so much overwhelming and glaring evidence” that would prove his innocence, the conviction would reflect structural racism in the European country, imposed by judges who, in the former player’s version, are lenient with cases of racism on football fields of the Italian Championship.

“The same people who don’t take any action about racism are the same people who judged me, who don’t give any voice to a black person who is trying to defend himself,” says the former player. “I’m absolutely sure that if I had been European, white, my judgment would have been completely different.”

Robinho ends the video by saying that he was wrong for not leaving the nightclub in Milan with his wife that night, but emphasizes that there is a “very big distance” between making a marital mistake and a criminal act.

“Whoever commits a crime of this magnitude has to pay and all women have the right to defend themselves, but that wasn’t my case. My case was a great injustice.”