Police stop two US Olympic swimmers from leaving Brazil

Brazilian police pulled two US Olympic swimmers off a plane about to leave the country to question them about a claim they made to have been victims of an armed mugging, according to US officials.

“We can confirm that Jack Conger and Gunnar Bentz were removed from their flight to the United States by Brazilian authorities,” Patrick Sandusky, spokesman for the US Olympic Committee, said on Wednesday.

Conger and Bentz were with star US swimmer Ryan Lochte and another squad member, James Feigen, when they said they were robbed at gunpoint on Sunday. Lochte is believed to be already in the United States, having left before Brazilian authorities ordered the swimmers be questioned.

It was not yet clear if Feigen was still in Brazil or in the United States.

Both Conger and Bentz were released from police custody early on Thursday after questioning, but their lawyer said they were not allowed to leave the country until an investigation was completed.

“Bents and Conger boarded a flight here in Rio International Airport on Wednesday, but before the flight could leave for the US, federal police boarded the plane took these two athletes out of the plane and detained both of them and took both of their passports,” Al Jazeera’s Gabriel Elizondo, reporting from Rio, said.

Some Brazilian officials have suggested that the swimmers may have made up their account of the mugging and could face charges for filing a false report, a serious crime in Brazil.

‘Robbed at gunpoint’

“These four Olympic swimmers left a party on early Sunday,” said Elizondo. “They were on their way back to the Olympic Village in a taxi … they all say that they were robbed at gunpoint on the side of the road.”

“They claim that perhaps the people robbed them at gunpoint were wearing police uniforms. A very, very serious claim by these four athletes.”

At first, the International Olympic Committee denied that anything had happened.

Lochte, though, gave interviews in which he described the incident in detail and Brazilian Olympic authorities were eventually forced to issue a public apology for the security slip-up.

But, early on Wednesday a Brazilian judge ordered an investigation saying their story was “full of inconsistencies”.

Judge Keyla Blank “issued warrants for searches and the seizure of the passports for the US swimmers,” a statement from her office said.

“With this, they are banned from leaving the country.”

Blank’s office said the judge was investigating possible inconsistencies in the swimmers stories including different accounts of how many muggers there were. Olympic officials said police were still looking for key witnesses, including the driver of the taxi the swimmers said they were in.