The Brazilian justice rejected this Wednesday a new appeal filed by the defense of former soccer player Robson de Souza Robinho, who is serving a nine-year prison sentence in Brazil for rape, and kept him in prison.

The judges of the Superior Court of Justice affirmed that the lawyers' arguments had already been discussed and subsequently rejected up to three times in the Supreme Court and, therefore, voted in the unanimous in denying it.

Robinho's defense argued that the Brazilian justice system did not take into account the discussion about the retroactivity of an immigration law that allows for serving a sentence imposed abroad in Brazil.

According to the defense, since the law was passed in 2017, several years after the rape the former soccer player committed in Italy, it could not be applied to his case.

The former player for clubs such as Real Madrid, Milan, and Manchester City was convicted in the European country in 2017 for the gang rape of a woman, which occurred in a Milan nightclub in 2013.

Robinho could not be imprisoned at the time because, before the sentence was known, he returned to Brazil, where the Constitution prohibits the extradition of its nationals.

The former striker was arrested in the city of Santos in March of last year after a Brazilian court approved the sentence and allowed it to be served in the country South American.

A day later, he entered Tremembe prison in the state of Sao Paulo.