Joran van der Sloot sent back to Peru after Holloway killing trial
ASSOCIATED PRESS / OCT. 18
Beth Holloway walks out to speak to media after the appearance of Joran van der Sloot outside the Hugo L. Black Federal Courthouse in Birmingham, Ala. Van der Sloot, the chief suspect in Natalee Holloway’s 2005 disappearance in Aruba admitted he killed her and disposed of her remains, and has agreed to plead guilty to charges he tried to extort money from the teen’s mother years later, a U.S. judge said Wednesday.
ASSOCIATED PRESS / JUNE 8
Dutch citizen Joran van der Sloot is driven in a police vehicle from a maximum-security prison to an airport to be extradited to the U.S., on the outskirts of Lima, Peru. Van der Sloot, the chief suspect in Natalee Holloway’s 2005 disappearance, is scheduled to appear in court Wednesday morning, Oct. 18, where he is expected to plead guilty to trying to extort money from her mother and provide new information about what happened to the missing teen.
LIMA, Peru >> A Dutch citizen who recently admitted to killing U.S. student Natalee Holloway in Aruba in 2005 is being sent this week from the United States to Peru where he will serve out a sentence for the killing of a Peruvian woman.
Joran van der Sloot will be transferred to Peru’s custody on Tuesday, the head of Interpol for the Andean country, Col. Aldo Avila, told The Associated Press.
Interpol earlier had said that van der Sloot was scheduled to arrive Monday afternoon in the Peruvian capital of Lima. But police in Peru later told local media outlets the flight was postponed. The U.S. Justice Department said it does not comment about timing of such extradition transfers for safety reasons.
Van der Sloot had been temporarily extradited to the U.S. to face charges linked to Holloway’s disappearance, a case that has drawn international attention over the course of two decades.
A few days ago, he admitted that he killed Holloway and disposed of her remains. The disclosure came as he pleaded guilty to charges of trying to extort money from Holloway’s mother in return for information about the location of the body.
U.S. authorities do not have jurisdiction to prosecute van der Sloot for the 2005 slaying on a beach in Aruba, where the statute of limitations for murder has expired. But the revelations have given long-sought answers to Holloway’s next-of-kin.
The Dutch citizen was sentenced to 20 years in prison in the U.S. for extortion and wire fraud, but as part of his plea agreement, that sentence will run concurrently with another one in Peru, where he’s serving a 28-year prison sentence for killing Stephany Flores in 2010.
A 2001 treaty between Peru and the U.S. allows a suspect to be temporarily extradited to face trial in the other country.
