Dutchman Joran van der Sloot Concedes Extortion AMSTERDAM (Sept. 6) -- The Dutchman charged with killing a 21-year-old Peruvian woman and suspected in the disappearance of U.S. teenager Natalee Holloway has acknowledged extorting money from Holloway's parents and says he did it to get back at them.
In an interview published Monday, the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf quoted Joran van der Sloot as confessing to taking money from the family of the American in return for revealing the location of her body. He was indicted in the U.S. in June for extortion after being caught in an FBI sting, though the place he indicated as her burial site turned out to be bogus.
Holloway was last seen alive with him on the Caribbean resort island of Aruba in 2005, and he has publicly said he killed her and then retracted his confession several times.
Joran van der Sloot, who has been jailed in Peru since June, has long been a suspect in the disappearance of Alabama teen Natalee Holloway in 2005. He was arrested in Peru after the May 30 killing of a 21-year-old Peruvian woman in his Lima hotel room.
2 Cases, 1 Suspect
Stephany Flores was seen with van der Sloot on May 29 at a Lima casino, where he was said to have been playing in a poker tournament, and on May 30 at the hotel, where her body was found. Reports say the suspect became enraged after Flores used his laptop and found he was connected to Holloway's disappearance.
Hotel security camera footage released by Peruvian police showed van der Sloot leaving his hotel room alone on May 30. Earlier footage showed him arriving at the hotel with Flores. Van der Sloot faces charges of first-degree murder and robbery in Flores' death. He is currently being held in Miguel Castro Castro, a maximum-security prison on the outskirts of Lima.
Van der Sloot said he took cash from Flores' wallet and went south to Chile, where he was later arrested. Here, Chilean police escort him out of a police station to be flown back to Peru on June 4. Police said he confessed to killing Flores, but van der Sloot later said he made that statement because of intimidation. He has tried to have the confession retracted, but so far Peruvian courts have refused.
Holloway was 18 when she disappeared while vacationing with friends in Aruba. She was last seen with van der Sloot, who made multiple, varying confessions in the case that prosecutors said were a mixture of "lies and fantasy." Authorities believe Holloway is dead, but her body has not been found.
Van der Sloot, center, and brothers Satish Kalpoe, left, and Deepak Kalpoe, right, were seen leaving a nightclub with Holloway. All three were arrested but not charged in the case. Van der Sloot reportedly told Peruvian authorities he would discuss the location of Holloway's body with Aruban officials, but only if he gets a transfer to a prison in the Caribbean island.
Holloway, left, poses with friends on May 29, 2005, just hours before her disappearance. The young women were on the trip to celebrate their high school graduation and were due to return to the U.S. the next day. In an interview published Monday in Dutch newspaper, van der Sloot said he extorted money from Holloway's parents because he wanted to get even with them for "making my life tough" since her disappearance. U.S. prosecutors said Natalee's mother sent him $25,000 earlier this year in exchange for information on where Natalee's body was. He used that money to fly to Latin America. (Sources: AP, ABC News, CNN)
"I wanted to get back at Natalee's family - her parents have been making my life tough for five years," the paper quoted him as saying from prison in Peru. "When they offered to pay for the girl's location, I thought: 'Why not'?"
U.S. prosecutors say in the sting earlier this year, Natalee's mother sent $10,000 in cash to Van der Sloot through an FBI witness, and a wire transfer of $15,000 to Van der Sloot's bank account in the Netherlands. He took the money and flew to Latin America.
He has been charged with killing Stephany Flores in his hotel room in Lima, Peru, on May 30 - 5 years to the day after Holloway's disappearance. He met both women in casinos.
Van der Sloot initially confessed to killing Flores to Peruvian police, but later said he only did so because he was intimidated and had been promised he would be extradited to the Netherlands.
His requests to have the Peruvian confession retracted have so far been denied and he awaits trial.
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