Suspect in Natalee Holloway’s death pleads not guilty to extorting her mother
Joran van der Sloot, who has been linked to the 2005 disappearance of an American teenager, Natalee Holloway, pleaded not guilty to racketeering and fraud charges in court in Birmingham, Ala., on Friday, after being temporarily deported from Peru. United States was extradited. .
Appearing at the Hugo L. Black United States Court House, Mr van der Sloot spoke only to decline the services of a Dutch translator and acknowledge that he understood the allegations against him.
He pleaded not guilty through his attorney, Kevin Butler, a federal public defender.
Before arriving in Alabama on Thursday afternoon, Van der Sloot, 35, was serving a prison sentence in Peru, where he pleaded guilty to the 2010 murder of a 21-year-old Peruvian student, Stephany Flores.
Last month, Peruvian authorities announced they would temporarily allow his extradition to ensure he “finally faces trial” in the United States.
“Peru played a big role in this process,” said George Seymore, a representative for Natalee’s mother, Beth Holloway. “They didn’t have to let this process continue.”
Around the time of his arrest in the Flores case, Mr van der Sloot was sued by a federal grand jury in Alabama on charges of attempted racketeering against Ms. Holloway for $250,000 for information about how her daughter died and where her body was, which has never been found.
He accepted an initial payment of $25,000 in an FBI sting operation and gave what he knew was false information, authorities said at the time.
Natalee Holloway was 18 when she disappeared after a night out in Aruba on May 30, 2005, while traveling with her high school class in Alabama. A judge declared her legally dead in 2012, but the unsolved case has aroused public interest for years.
“Now, 18 years later, the wheels of justice are finally turning for our family, and we are getting our much-anticipated day in court,” Ms Holloway said in a statement. “Now that the felony charge has been completed, the prosecution of this criminal case has officially begun.”
Ms. Holloway added that Mr. Van der Sloot’s plea not guilty was “not discouraging to us” and that she was confident that federal prosecutors would reach a conviction.
Lawyers for the Holloway family expect the case to go to court, but the timing remains unclear.
“While today’s indictment represents an important step forward, we should remember that the pursuit of justice is far from over,” John Q. Kelly, an attorney for Beth Holloway, said in a statement.
Mr. van der Sloot was held in Alabama’s Shelby County Jail as of Friday.
If found guilty in the racketeering case, he will first return to Peru to serve the remainder of his 28-year sentence for the murder of Ms. Flores, who died of strangulation, before returning to the United States for imprisonment.