Joshua Riibe detained in Puerto Rico as his frustrated dad tells reporters to leave them alone after Sudiksha Konanki’s disappearance
The Iowa man previously named as a person of interest in the disappearance of missing Pitt student Sudiksha Konanki faced another hitch getting home — because of issues with the new passport he had to get to leave the Dominican Republic.
Joshua Riibe, 22, was detained during a stopover in Puerto Rico late Wednesday, NotiCentro reported — with video showing his dad, Albert, calling out to him to “Ask for your lawyer!”
Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) later confirmed to The Post that he was not detained or questioned in the Konanki case after he was led away at Luis Mu?oz Marín Airport.
He was questioned?because?his?new passport?— issued by the US Consulate in the Dominican Republic to help him leave quickly — was not properly stamped when he left,?NotiCentro reported.
However, his father could not contain his frustration at being delayed yet again in getting his son home, telling reporters at the airport to “leave us alone.”
“I’m just a dad, who had his son taken away, and I don’t understand, we just spent two weeks trying to stay together, and now … I don’t understand,” he complained.
Riibe was set to return to Rock Rapids, Iowa, following two weeks of questioning in the disappearance of Konanki, a 20-year-old pre-med student whom he was the last to see during an early morning swim in rough waters at the RIU Hotel & Resort in Punta Cana on March 6.
He told police he pulled Konanki to safety but then drunkenly passed out on the beach — and she has not been seen since.
Authorities described him as a person of interest but never accused him of wrongdoing or said he was a suspect — though they still seized his passport and phone.
He was allowed to leave soon after Konanki’s grieving parents asked Dominican authorities to let him go and to also declare their daughter legally dead, saying they were convinced she drowned even though her body has not been located.
“Both sides of the authorities have shown us how high the ocean waves were at the time of the incident, and both sides of the authorities have clarified the person of interest was not a suspect from the beginning,” Subbarayudu Konanki, the missing co-ed’s father, said from the family home in Virginia.
“It is with deep sadness and a heavy heart that we are coming to terms with the fact our daughter has drowned,” he said. “This is incredibly difficult for us to process.”
— With reporting by Jorge Fitz-Gibbon
