‎Brazil News

 

Former football player Robinho / Credit: Divulgação Atlético-MG

The Federal Public Ministry (MPF) defended, in a statement sent to the Superior Court of Justice (STJ), that former player Robinho serve a nine-year prison sentence in Brazil, following his conviction for the crime of gang rape in Italy.

 

When sentencing the former attacker, in 2022, the Milan Court asked the Brazilian State to ratify the sentence and transfer the execution of the sentence to the European country. Brazilian legislation, however, does not allow the extradition of natives to serve sentences abroad.

 

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In the opinion, the MPF states that the transfer of criminal execution from Italy to Brazil respects both the Federal Constitution and the country's commitment to repressing crime and legal cooperation.

 

 

Also according to the body, the position supported by Deputy Attorney General of the Republic Carlos Frederico Santos was based on “extensive jurisprudence of the Superior Courts and the legal principle according to which the State in which the accused is located is obliged to carry out his extradition or, If it is impossible to do so, it must promote criminal execution.” This practice is widely adopted by Brazilian courts and ratified based on a variety of international treaties ratified by Brazil, says the MPF.

 

“Jurisprudence appears to be in line with a Brazilian legal system that is progressively aligned with the global trend of countries overcoming traditional paradigms of jurisdiction and sovereignty, in order to cooperate to combat crime at an international level and promote a more effective administration of justice”, highlights the Deputy Attorney General of the Republic.

 

homologation

In the petition, the MPF refuted all the points raised by the former athlete's lawyers, who defended the impossibility of transferring the conviction, including the alleged restriction of defense. According to Carlos Frederico, the approval procedure “does not require a full analysis of the foreign process, with the assessment of documents made available by the country of origin and considered essential for understanding the process being sufficient”.

 

According to the prosecutor, in this specific case, the Italian government provided a description of the facts surrounding the sentence and there is an admissibility opinion issued by the Ministry of Justice and Public Security.

 

Carlos Frederico also highlighted that article 100 of the Migration Law (13,445/2017) – questioned by Robinho's defense – inserted the transfer of the execution of the sentence into the Brazilian legal system to guarantee the application of the sentence both to the foreign convict located in Brazil, and to Brazilians sentenced abroad. “The main object of the rule in question is international legal cooperation between Brazil and foreign States, regulating an instrument to give internal effectiveness to criminal sentences handed down outside the country,” he stated.

 

The MPF also refuted the argument of alleged offense to national sovereignty, human dignity and public order during the criminal proceedings. According to the former player's defense, the collection of evidence in the foreign process would have occurred in a manner that was not consistent with Brazilian rules.

 

In Carlos Frederico's assessment, the current norm surpasses the provision foreseen in the previous draft of the Penal Code, based on an obsolete vision of sovereignty. In this sense, the prosecutor states that the defense arguments “are nothing more than mere speculation and the procedures applicable to the case are those provided for in the Italian legal system”.

 

It is up to the STJ to decide whether or not to accept the MPF's request for Robinho's sentence to be carried out in Brazil.