Joshua Libe has left the luxury Dominican Republic resort where Pitt student Suddiksha Conanki went missing.
The 22-year-old Libe was identified as the “interesting person” in the mysterious loss of Coed's 20-year-old Coed on March 6, but remains elsewhere in the Caribbean the day after a Dominican judge ruled he was “free to leave” after being under constant police surveillance. Reported by Noticias Sin.
However, despite conflicting reports from local media on Tuesday, the young Iowa still doesn't have his passport, despite conflicting reports from local media surrounding Justice Edwin Delgado's ruling after a fierce court case.
Delgado has granted a request from police to leave the police from his back as he has not been charged with fraud, but a new report shows that the judge has not ordered his passport back.
Noticias Sin said Riibe's lawyers are fighting to get his passport back for the Dominican Republic's US Embassy petition for a new one. Listin Diario said Wednesday.
Riibe's lawyers, doctors and staff officials at the US Embassy did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the status of the case Wednesday.
The embassy has said it has been working recently to support Libe and his family.
meanwhile, Outlet also reported A reduction in searches for Conanki, a ready-made student at the University of Pittsburgh, who disappeared during his spring break trip.
Police say Conanki and Libe were swimming at the resort's beach after partying at a hotel bar early in the morning on March 6 when they encountered rough surfing at a tourist spot in Punta Cana.
Libe tells authorities that he pulled Conanki safely and asks if she is okay, then dies on the beach.
The next day, a friend of Conanki reported that she was missing, and lasted nearly two weeks, launching a massive search, as well as representatives from the FBI, the US Department of Homeland Security and the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office in Coed's hometown.
Dominican authorities did not rule out foul plays and identified Libe as someone interested in the case. He keeps him under constant surveillance while seizing his passport and confiscating his cell phone.
At a court hearing Tuesday, government lawyers denied that he was “in custody,” claiming he was by no means a suspect but a key witness.
The hearing came the day after he declared Conanki's sad parents to the Dominican authorities that their daughter was legally dead, and asked her to release her, saying she was convinced she had been drowned.
“Both authorities have shown how high the ocean waves were at the time of the incident, and both sides of the authorities have made it clear that the interested person was not a suspect from the start,” Sabu Belayudu Conanki, the father of a man and woman, said from a family home in Virginia.
“It has deep sadness and heavy heart to us that we agree with the fact that our daughter has owned,” he said. “This is very difficult for us to handle.”
