Suspect in Holloway disappearance now in U.S.

Dutch citizen Joran van der Sloot, center, is driven in a police vehicle from the Ancon I maximum-security prison, outskirts of Lima, Peru, Thursday, June 8, 2023. The main suspect in the unsolved 2005 disappearance of American student Natalee Holloway on the Caribbean island of Aruba is expected to be extradited Thursday from Peru to the United States. (AP Photo/Martin Mejia)
Dutch citizen Joran van der Sloot, center, is driven in a police vehicle from the Ancon I maximum-security prison, outskirts of Lima, Peru, Thursday, June 8, 2023. The main suspect in the unsolved 2005 disappearance of American student Natalee Holloway on the Caribbean island of Aruba is expected to be extradited Thursday from Peru to the United States. (AP Photo/Martin Mejia)

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- Joran van der Sloot, the chief suspect in the 2005 disappearance of Natalee Holloway, arrived in the United States from Peru on Thursday to face charges that he attempted to extort money from the missing teen's mother.

An FBI-operated plane carrying van der Sloot landed at Birmingham's Shuttlesworth Airport about 2:30 p.m. -- just hours after Peruvian authorities handed him over temporarily to U.S. custody -- and the suspect was escorted down the steps into a black SUV, which took him to a local jail.

Van der Sloot was to be arraigned in federal court in Birmingham on Friday, according to court records. Kevin Butler, an attorney listed as van der Sloot's public defender, did not return an email seeking comment on the case.

The suspect has been serving a 28-year sentence in Peru after confessing to killing a Peruvian woman. He is wanted in the U.S. on one count each of extortion and wire fraud -- the only charges to have ever linked the Dutch citizen to Holloway's disappearance on the Caribbean island of Aruba. He was handed over to the U.S. roughly a month after both countries agreed on his extradition.

Holloway's mother, Beth Holloway, said she was "overcome with mixed emotions."

"As a mother who has tirelessly pursued justice for the abduction and murder of my precious daughter, I stand before you today with a heart both heavy with sorrow and yet lifted by a glimmer of hope," she said in a written statement. "For 18 years, I have lived with the unbearable pain of Natalee's loss. Each day has been filled with unanswered questions and a longing for justice that has eluded us at every turn. But today ... I am hopeful that some small semblance of justice may finally be realized."


Natalee Holloway, 18, was on a high school graduation trip with classmates in Aruba when she vanished in 2005. She was last seen leaving a bar with van der Sloot, who was a student at an international school on the island.

Van der Sloot was identified as a main suspect and detained weeks later for questioning, along with two Surinamese brothers, but no charges were filed in the case.

A judge declared Holloway dead, but her body has never been found.

U.S. prosecutors said that in 2010, van der Sloot reached out to Beth Holloway, seeking $250,000 to disclose the location of the young woman's body. A grand jury indicted him that year on one count each of wire fraud and extortion.

Video and photos released by Peruvian authorities Thursday showed van der Sloot wearing jeans and a black puffer jacket, shaking his shoulders and grimacing as officers adjusted his handcuffs and removed an Interpol-marked vest. Footage and images also showed van der Sloot in a conference room with law enforcement officers from Peru, the FBI and Interpol and a health care professional.

Holloway's mysterious disappearance sparked years of news coverage and numerous true-crime podcasts.

In 2012, van der Sloot pleaded guilty in Peru to killing 21-year-old Stephany Flores, a business student from a prominent Peruvian family. She was killed in 2010, five years to the day after Holloway's disappearance.

Van der Sloot married a Peruvian woman in July 2014 in a ceremony at a maximum-security prison. He was transferred among Peruvian prisons in response to reports that he enjoyed privileges such as television, internet access and a cellphone and accusations that he had threatened to kill a warden.

Holloway's mother is a 1978 graduate of Pine Bluff High School. Her father, Dave Holloway, is a graduate of Westside High School near Jonesboro.

Information for this article was contributed by Mauricio Muñoz and Lindsay Whitehurst of The Associated Press.

  photo  Dutch citizen Joran van der Sloot, center, is driven in a police vehicle from the Ancon I maximum-security prison, outskirts of Lima, Peru, Thursday, June 8, 2023. The main suspect in the unsolved 2005 disappearance of American student Natalee Holloway on the Caribbean island of Aruba is expected to be extradited Thursday from Peru to the United States. (AP Photo/Martin Mejia)
 
 
  photo  Dutch citizen Joran van der Sloot is driven in a police vehicle from the Ancon I maximum-security prison, outskirts of Lima, Peru, Thursday, June 8, 2023. The main suspect in the unsolved 2005 disappearance of American student Natalee Holloway on the Caribbean island of Aruba is expected to be extradited Thursday from Peru to the United States. (AP Photo/Martin Mejia)
 
 
  photo  FILE - Joran van der Sloot arrives to the courtroom for his sentence at San Pedro prison in Lima, Peru, Friday Jan. 13, 2012. The main suspect in the 2005 disappearance of U.S. student Natalee Holloway is expected to be handed over to U.S. officials in Peru and flown to the United States on Thursday, June 8, 2023, roughly a month after both countries agreed on his extradition. (AP Photo/Karel Navarro, File)
 
 
  photo  Dutch citizen Joran van der Sloot, back left, is driven in a police vehicle from the Ancon I maximum-security prison, outskirts of Lima, Peru, Thursday, June 8, 2023. The main suspect in the unsolved 2005 disappearance of American student Natalee Holloway on the Caribbean island of Aruba is expected to be extradited Thursday from Peru to the United States. .(AP Photo/Martin Mejia)
 
 
  photo  Dutch citizen Joran van der Sloot is driven in a police vehicle from the Ancon I maximum-security prison, outskirts of Lima, Peru, Thursday, June 8, 2023. The main suspect in the unsolved 2005 disappearance of American student Natalee Holloway on the Caribbean island of Aruba is expected to be extradited Thursday from Peru to the United States. (AP Photo/Martin Mejia)
 
 

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