Robinho arrested in Brazil, to serve nine-year prison sentence for rape in 'hell on earth'

Robinho was arrested after the Superior Court of Justice decided that the 40-year-old former player must serve nine years for rape in Brazil

Robinho, Real Madrid footballer from 2005 to 2008, was arrested in Santos (Brazil) after the STJ (Superior Court of Justice) decided that the 40-year-old former player must serve time for rape in Brazil.

The Justice executed the STJ's decision, and as a result the former footballer will serve a nine-year prison sentence after being convicted in 2022 in Italy for a gang rape committed in the transalpine country in 2013.

The Federal Court of Santos received the STJ's letter in the afternoon, and in the early evening issued the arrest warrant.

Robinho was transferred hours later to the Federal Police headquarters. The defence was denied habeas corpus in the STF (Supreme Federal Court).

Robinho will enter Brazil's overcrowded prison system, which has been dubbed in the press as «hell on earth» (beheaded inmates, savage drug lords, toilets with holes in the floor, poor sanitary conditions, sexual violence...").

A Human Rights Watch report on Brazil's prisons denounced the insufficient funds to maintain their facilities and highlighted their decay.

«Overcrowding is a major problem in Brazil's prisons and nowhere is it more severe than in Pernambuco… The state has locked tens of thousands of people in wards designed for a third of that number, and handed the keys to inmates who use violence and intimidation to run prison grounds as personal fiefdoms,» said Maria Laura Canineu, director of Human Rights Watch.