OAN Staff Abril Elfi
5:42pm – Tuesday, March 18th, 2025
The judge ruled that Joshua Libe “leaves freely” the Dominican Republic after being detained in the country following the disappearance of 20-year-old University of Pittsburgh student Sudiksha Conanki.
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On Tuesday, a Dominican Republic judge ruled that Libe could return home during the hearing.
“Joshua Libe is free to leave,” the judge declared following a hearing that continued for hours and hours of deliberation.
Lib told Judge Elvis Delgado during a heated, closed hearing. I don't knowhe “ready to go home and return to my life.”
“I really want to go home, talk to my family, hug me, hug me, tell them I miss them,” Lib said. “I understand that I'm helping you to be here, but 10 days have passed and I can't leave.”
Libe has not been accused of her murder, but he has been under surveillance at the resort since Sudhiksha was reported missing.
The 22-year-old man claims he is essentially a prisoner at Riu Hotel & Resort, confiscates his cell phone and accompany him every time he leaves the room.
The decision to release him came after Conanki's parents stated that they believed she was drowning in the strong waves of Punta Cana, and that Reibe had no role in her death.
“Both authorities have shown how high the ocean waves are at the time of the incident, and both sides of the authorities have made it clear that the interested person is not a suspect from the start,” her father, subbarayudu, said. New York Post. “It has deep sorrow and heavy heart that we agree with the fact that our daughter owns.”
Dominican government lawyers disputed that Libe was in “detention” and alleged that he was merely a witness in the case and that he was willing to surrender his passport to the police. They also said he was never “interrogated” by police and was only an “interview,” the outlet said.
Nevertheless, the judge disagreed with the government, so he admitted his request to leave the country of Libe and released him to return to Iowa.
“The law is the law,” Delgado declared.
Authorities confirmed that Carter Joseph, a friend who was with Liebe at the resort, was also still in the Dominican Republic, but they did not indicate whether he was being held against his will.
Officials say more than 50 people, including Riibe, were interviewed in the survey.
March 6thth20-year-old Sudiksha Konanki disappeared while spring break was in the Dominican Republic.
According to surveillance video, she walked to the beach with seven other people around 4:15am, but most of the group returned around 6am and left her with Libe.
“When I finally touched the sand, I put her in front of me. Then she went to get hers before the sea moved us,” Libe told the prosecutor. “She wasn't out of the water to her knees. She was walking diagonally in the water.”
“The last time I saw her, I asked her if she was okay. I didn't hear her reaction as she started vomiting with all the water I swallowed,” he said. “After the vomiting, I looked around, but no one saw it. She took her stuff and thought she had left.”
Libe claims he vomits and died in a chair on the beach, and wakes up a few hours later, then returns to his hotel room.
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