Victim’s lawyer celebrates Robinho’s conviction and says the ball is with Brazil

​Jacopo Gnocchi welcomed the decision of the last instance of the Italian Justice that sentenced the player Robinho to nine years in prison for gang rape. The victim’s lawyer, a woman of Albanian origin who is now 31 years old, celebrated the ruling established by the Court of Cassation in Rome on Wednesday (19).

“We believe that today’s decision is right,” he said, adding that the execution of the sentence is still uncertain. “We hope that the execution takes place. We know that the problem is that the culprits are in Brazil, and there may be issues of a constitutional nature for an eventual request for execution,” Gnocchi told leaf.

Robinho and his friend Ricardo Falco, also convicted of the same case –which took place in 2013, in a nightclub in Milan–, are in Brazil and deny having committed a crime. The Brazilian Constitution prevents the extradition of its citizens, but the victim’s representatives hope that the sentence will be carried out in Brazilian territory.

Brazilian legislation provides in the Migration Law (13.445/17) the transfer of sentence for cases in which extradition is not possible. Specialists in Criminal Law have doubts about this possibility, and Robinho heard from his lawyers that the risk is remote. But the victim’s lawyer tries to keep the faith.

“I believe that Brazil is a great country. It cannot protect the guilty, it has to protect the victims. The process granted, from beginning to end, all the rights of defense for those who were found guilty. There were 15 judges, from the investigation until today , who found these two guilty,” said Gnocchi.

“Personally, I see this as a diplomatic, political, executive problem. Call it what you want. The final sentence now exists. The ball now passes to Brazil,” said the lawyer. He attended the final audience in Rome and spoke on behalf of his client, who declined to comment.

According to Gnocchi, “there is no feeling of revenge, but simply the recognition that justice has been done, at least on paper.” For him, the conviction should encourage women victims of violence to report the crimes.

“The authorities exist, the system exists. I know it takes time. But it is necessary to denounce, denounce and denounce. The guardianship, unfortunately, still passes through the judicial system. gender violence. Today it has to go through judicial channels.”

The lawyer will now focus on the lawsuit filed against the other four men accused of participating in the 2013 gang rape. They left Italy during the investigation and could not be notified. Thus, his case was spun off from Robinho and Falco’s. “There are the four subjects. It is necessary to resume this procedure”, he concluded.