Rio 2016: Carjacker 'killed with own gun' in attempted robbery near Olympic village

However, Russian officials deny a diplomat was man who fought off attacker amid conflicting reports over his identity

Soldiers stand guard outside the Olympic Athletes' village in Rio de Janeiro (Getty)

A Brazilian carjacker has been killed with his own gun after attempting to rob a man on the road to the Olympic village in Rio de Janeiro, local police have said.

Early reports from the Associated Press quoted Rio police who said the man who killed the carjacker was a vice consul at the Russian consulate.

But the Russian embassy said none of its employees were involved in the incident.

In statement to the Guardian, the Russian consulate said: “The embassy of Russia in Brazil informs that no representative of the Russian Consul General in Rio de Janeiro was involved in the attempted assault that ended with the death of the suspect in Barra da Tijuca this Thursday.

“The officials of the diplomatic mission are Russian citizens with Russian names, which was not the case (in Thursday’s incident).”

The Russian embassy told the Independent: “The vehicle pictured [in local reports] does not have a diplomatic licence plate. Moreover, judging by the articles published, the person involved was a local citizen, and both the Vienna Convention 1961 and the Russian federal law explicitly forbid appointment of host country nationals on diplomatic service positions.”

A report on Brazilian website Folha.uol.com said the man in the car told police he was a lawyer and presented them with a false consular identification card that said he was the Russian vice consul in the state of Minas Gerais in southeast Brazil.

The Russian Tass news agency quoted Vladimir Tokmakov, Russian consul general in Rio, saying no member of staff had “anything to do with the incident.”

But Mr Tokmakov said that he could not “rule out” that whoever was involved in the reported incident could have introduced himself as a member of diplomatic staff.

Another report in Brazil’s Globo newspaper says two carjackers arrived on motorbikes and attacked the vehicle as the man inside was travelling with his wife and daughter.

One attacker smashed the driver’s window of the car with a gun, and demanded the man’s watch. But the man, who the paper claims was trained in jiu-jitsu, reportedly hauled his assailant into the vehicle where the suspect was killed with his own gun as his accomplice fled the scene.

Street muggings of this kind are not uncommon in Rio de Janeiro, especially in areas with heavy traffic where motorcycles can drive in between lanes, attack motorists and then escape.

The attack comes immediately ahead of the Olympic Games opening ceremony on Friday evening.