Suspect in Natalee Holloway Disappearance to Be Extradited to US

Temporary extradition order requires Joran van der Sloot to ultimately be returned to Peru
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted May 11, 2023 12:47 AM CDT
Suspect in Natalee Holloway Disappearance to Be Extradited to US
FILE - Joran van der Sloot sits in the courtroom before his sentencing at San Pedro prison in Lima, Peru, Jan. 13, 2012.   (AP Photo/Karel Navarro, File)

Peru's government issued an executive order Wednesday allowing the extradition to the United States of the prime suspect in the unsolved 2005 disappearance of American student Natalee Holloway on the Dutch Caribbean island of Aruba, the AP reports. The Peruvian Embassy in Washington told the Associated Press the order allows for the temporary extradition of Dutchman Joran van der Sloot to be prosecuted for alleged extortion and wire fraud, charges stemming from the Holloway case. Holloway’s body was never found, and no charges were filed against Van der Sloot in the case. A judge later declared Holloway dead. Prosecutors in the US allege Van der Sloot accepted $25,000 in cash from Holloway’s family in exchange for a promise to lead them to her body in early 2010, just before he went to Peru. Holloway was from Mountain Brook, Alabama.

Van der Sloot is serving 28 years in prison in Peru for being convicted of murdering 21-year-old Peruvian student Stephany Flores after meeting her in a Lima casino in 2010. The slaying occurred five years to the day after Holloway disappeared during a high school graduation trip to Aruba, where Van der Sloot lived. She was last seen leaving a bar with him. A 2001 treaty between Peru and the US allows a suspect to be temporarily extradited to face trial in the other country. It requires that the prisoner “be returned" after judicial proceedings are concluded "against that person, in accordance with conditions to be determined by” both countries.

(More Natalee Holloway stories.)

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