Members of Brazil's Superior Tribunal of Justice ruled that the 75-year-old's arrest was not proportional to the accusations made against him.

"The preventive detention was replaced with a conditional release," a spokesman for the Superior Court of Justice added to Agence France-Presse.

He has now left prison but remains forbidden from leaving Rio de Janeiro.

He is also forbidden from visiting premises of the Brazilian Olympic Committee (COB) and Rio 2016.

He must also appear in court whenever requested.

Nuzman was arrested in Rio de Janeiro on October 5 as part of 'Operation Unfair Play' and has been in custody since.

Brazilian and French authorities allege that the official, a lawyer by trade, helped pay $2 million (£1.5 million/€1.7 million) in bribes to try to influence the votes of African members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) before the vote in Copenhagen in 2009, where Rio de Janeiro were awarded the Games ahead of Chicago, Madrid and Tokyo. 

He has already stood down as President of Rio 2016 and COB following his arrest, while also being suspended as an honorary member of the IOC.

Judges had previously recommended that Nuzman not be granted any sort of bail in order to "preserve the environment of free collection of his performance and interference, which would surely be impaired with freedom".

Nuzman's lawyer Nélio Machado has reacted jubilantly to the decision and predicted that the case will "collapse due to its fragility and its manifest inconsistency".

"Never has Charles Arthur Nuzman enjoyed any benefit from public works, stadium renovation ventures, which actually comes from a dreamlike vision, from a dream of a fantasy out of reality, as the defence has said from the very first hour and that will prove conclusively," he was quoted by Brasil247 as adding.

But it has since been confirmed that Judge Marcelo Bretas from the Federal Criminal Court of Rio has accepted the complaint filed by the Federal Public Ministry against the former governor of Rio Sérgio Cabral as well as Nuzman and  Arthur Cesar de Menezes Soares Filho, a businessman nicknamed 'King Arthur'.

Machado was quoted in O'Globo as claiming that this acceptance is "merely formal" but it indicated that the investigation is continuing as before. 

Nuzman's right-hand man, Leonardo Gryner, the ex-Rio 2016 general director, is also accused of the same charges but had already been released from prison.

Nuzman is suspected by Brazilian prosecutors of being the main link between de Menezes and Senegal's former International Association of Athletics Federations, President Lamine Diack. 

Diack was a voting member of the IOC at the time Rio was awarded the Olympic and Paralympic Games at the IOC Session in Copenhagen eight years ago. 

De Menezes allegedly provided at least $1.5 million (£1.2 million/€1.4 million) through a company set-up by Diack's son, Papa Massata, to help solicit the votes of African IOC members in return for supporting Rio 2016. 

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