The main suspect in Natalee Holloway’s disappearance reportedly left Peru Thursday for the United States accompanied by several Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents.
Joran van der Sloot is the prime suspect in Holloway’s disappearance, which occurred in 2005 while the young woman from Alabama was on a high school senior trip in Aruba, Fox News reported Thursday.
The plane reportedly left Jorge Chavez International Airport early Thursday, despite his lawyer trying to halt the temporary extradition.
Now, the suspect is expected to arrive in Birmingham, Alabama, in the afternoon.
Suspect in Natalee Holloway disappearance to be handed over to FBI https://t.co/iXeuFpR9az pic.twitter.com/4tkLqaDNoH
— New York Post (@nypost) June 7, 2023
Video footage shows officials transporting van der Sloot from a prison in Lima to the airport:
“Van der Sloot has been serving a 28-year sentence for the murder of a Peruvian woman,” the Associated Press reported Wednesday.
He was recently moved from a maximum-security prison to a detention center in Lima. In May, Peruvian authorities agreed to temporarily transfer the Dutch national to America where he is facing charges of extortion and wire fraud.
The man is accused of trying to sell Holloway’s mother information regarding the whereabouts of her daughter’s remains, but American prosecutors say van der Sloot lied to the family’s lawyer about the location.
“It’s fairly extraordinary for another country to temporarily give up a prisoner to the United States,” former FBI agent Brad Garrett told ABC News:
“It would have taken a fair amount of negotiation between U.S. authorities and Peruvian authorities,” he added.
Holloway, who lived in Birmingham, was 18 years old when she disappeared during the trip, and “was last seen leaving a bar with van der Sloot, who was a student at an international school on the island,” the AP article said.
Officials later identified van der Sloot as a suspect in addition to two Surinamese brothers. However, authorities never found Holloway, no charges were filed, and she was eventually declared dead.
In regard to what happens when van der Sloot arrives in America, law professor John Carroll at the Cumberland School of Law told WVTM it depends on the court’s docket:
“First of all, there’s a discovery process that has to go on. The government has to share information with the defendant, there will be a motion practice arguably where the defendant would get to file motions and that sort of thing,” he said.
“I think it will be treated just like any other federal criminal case here in Birmingham,” the professor explained.