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Joran van der Sloot is now back in Peru after confessing to the murder of Natalee Holloway, who vanished during her trip to Aruba 18 years ago.
The 36-year-old landed in Lima Tuesday under the custody of law enforcement after the Peruvian government agreed in June to extradite him to the U.S. to face trial for extortion and wire fraud charges, the Associated Press reported. The Dutch national will serve out the rest of his prison sentence in Peru for a murder that’s unrelated to Holloway’s.
On October 18, van der Sloot plead guilty in an Alabama court to attempting to extort Holloway’s mother, Beth Holloway, out of $250,000 in exchange for information on the location of her daughter’s body.
Van der Sloot’s guilty plea was part of a deal with prosecutors that was also contingent on him revealing details about Holloway’s disappearance. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison, which is set to be served concurrently with the 28-year sentence his is currently serving in Peru for the 2010 murder of 21-year-old Peruvian student Stephany Flores.
Joran van der Sloot’s extradition to Peru was delayed
The Dutchman’s extradition back to Peru was temporarily halted Monday due to mechanical issues on his plane.
“The extradition of Joran van der Sloot to Peru is delayed because of mechanical issues with the aircraft,” the U.S. Marshals Service said in a statement on Monday, Fox News reported. “The U.S. Marshals Service will coordinate with the Peruvian Officials to reschedule the extradition.”
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Northern District of Alabama confirmed to People Tuesday that van der Sloot had returned to the South American country.
There is no additional information available about the transport, per the U.S. Department of Justice’s policy to not speak on extradition schedules, a spokesperson with the department told the outlet.
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What Happened to Natalee Holloway?
Holloway disappeared on a vacation with her classmates to Aruba in 2005, and was declared legally dead in 2012. The 18-year-old’s body was never found. In a shocking courtroom confession, van der Sloot admitted to killing Holloway, saying he kicked her hard in the face and then bashed her face in with a cinder block the night she disappeared, May 30, 2005.
“I smash her head in with it completely,” van der Sloot said, according to a transcript of his audio confession. “Her face basically, you know, collapses in. Even though it’s dark, I can see her face is collapsed in.”
Beth said her daughter “fought like hell” in the moments before her death, since van der Sloot said he attacked Holloway after she refused his sexual advances and kneed him.
“She was killed just by standing her ground,” Beth said. “I was so proud of her.”
Could Joran van der Sloot go to trial for the murder of Natalee Holloway?
The statute of limitations for murder in Aruba is 12 years, which means van der Sloot will likely not be charged with killing Holloway. However, authorities in Aruba have requested documents in van der Sloot’s extortion case, in which he admitted to Holloway’s murder, from the U.S. government, according to the Associated Press. Ann Angela, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office in Aruba, told the AP that her office will “review and analyze them before deciding on the procedural steps to be taken against Joran van der Sloot.” She added that Holloway’s case remains open.
