Joran Van der Sloot to Fight US Extradition

Joran Van der Sloot, the confessed murderer of a woman in Peru who has long been suspected of some sort of involvement in the death of American teenager Natalee Holloway, will fight extradition to the US.

Van der Sloot currently sits in prison in Peru, serving out a 28-year prison sentence for the murder of 21-year-old Stephany Flores in a Lima hotel. The Dutch man was sentenced back in January for the murder- a murder that occurred five years to the day Natalee Holloway disappeared in Aruba and sparked off worldwide interest in the American teen’s still-unknown fate.

In the years since Holloway vanished and presumably was killed, Van der Sloot has been continuously suspected and never cleared in her disappearance. But until the murder of Flores, he was free to walk and talk about Holloway’s case- and Joran Van der Sloot wasn’t entirely shy about leading and misleading her fraught loved ones about when her fate was asked about.

In what must have been a heartbreaking turn for the parents of Natalee Holloway, they turned over $25,000 to the then-free man after he promised to lead them to the location of the teen’s body. Joran Van der Sloot accepted the money from the girl’s grieving family, but never came through with the information, prompting the call for extradition to the US on fraud charges.

Lawyer for Joran Van der Sloot Maximo Altez explains that if his client is not extradited, he will likely walk free again after serving one-third of his 28-year sentence for murdering Flores, a crime to which he confessed. If he is extradited to the US, Van der Sloot will probably be forced to serve the entire term. Altez adds:

“It’s not good for us if Van der Sloot goes to the United States because everyone hates him there and the members of the jury will thus be biased. We will defend ourselves with all the legal remedies possible.”