Peru hands over Dutch murderer to US FBI

Peruvian police have handed over a convicted Dutch murderer to US FBI agents for transfer to the United States, where he faces extortion and fraud charges related to the killing of an Alabama teenager two decades ago.

According to a report on Thursday June 8, 2023, Joran van der Sloot, a Dutch national from the Caribbean island of Aruba, is set to face charges in the United States related to the mysterious disappearance and presumed murder of Natalee Holloway, an 18-year-old from a suburb of Birmingham, Alabama, who vanished during a high school graduation trip to Aruba in 2005.

Van der Sloot was in FBI custody and was expected to depart imminently for the United States from a Peruvian air force base, Carlos López, head of Interpol Lima, told reporters.

“This transfer will be temporary while the process in the United States lasts. Later, the Dutch citizen will be returned to Peru so that he can continue to serve his sentence in the Challapalca prison,” López said.

Television footage showed the Dutchman being escorted by armed police from a Lima prison where he has been serving a 28-year sentence for murder in a separate case. His extradition was approved in May by Peru’s council of ministers.

He was previously arrested in the United States for Holloway’s disappearance, but was not charged. Her remains have never been found, though an Alabama judge declared her legally deceased in 2012, without settling the case. The young student was last seen in Aruba with Van der Sloot and another man.

Her disappearance prompted an exhaustive investigation and intense media attention.

Van der Sloot, 35, is accused of extortion and fraud for offering Holloway’s family false information about the whereabouts of the teenager, according to US authorities.

“The Peruvian authorities have signed a letter of guarantee, in which the American authorities agree to return this Dutch citizen (…) whether he is acquitted or sentenced,” in a process that could take at least a year, López added.

Van der Sloot was sentenced in 2012 to 28 years in prison in Peru after he confessed to beating, strangling and suffocating Stephany Flores Ramírez, a 21-year-old Peruvian business student in 2010.