AFP
Rio de Janeiro, August 18: Brazilian police pulled two US Olympic swimmers off a US-bound plane in a row over their claims of having been victims of an armed mugging, officials said here Wednesday.
“We can confirm that Jack Conger and Gunnar Bentz were removed from their flight to the United States by Brazilian authorities,” said Patrick Sandusky, spokesman for the US Olympic Committee.
The two were with star US swimmer Ryan Lochte and another squad member, James Feigen, when they said they were robbed at gunpoint early Sunday. A Brazilian judge ordered a probe, and said that their story is full of inconsistencies.
“The swimmers are here and making statements,” an airport police spokesman told this agency, without giving any further details.‘Globo’, a leading Brazilian news organisation, posted a video online showing the two swimmers walking into a police station.
They were later released ‘with the understanding that they would continue their discussions about the incident Thursday’, Sandusky said.
Lochte, who went home before Brazilian authorities ordered the swimmers’ questioning, and Feigen, who remains in here in the city, will cooperate with the investigation, broadcaster ‘NBC’ reported.
Earlier, 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,” it added.
The court order was the latest twist in a story of a supposedly terrifying incident that embarrassed Olympic authorities. Now, however, Brazilian officials are suggesting that the US swimmers may have made up their account – and could face charges for filing a false report.
