Tag: Joran Van der Sloot (page 4)

El Comercio.pe is reporting Joran Van Der Sloot has confessed to killing Stephany Flores. [Google translation here.] Keep in mind the Google translations are very poor.

The motive, according to the report: When he came back from getting coffee, she was examining his computer looking for information about Natalee Holloway, he got angry, snapped, grabbed her and killed her. The report says she died instantly.

The video is in Spanish, but it includes photos of the hotel room and what purports to be Stephany's body on the floor, fully dressed. (Would they show that, or is it a re-enactment?) She's fully dressed.

NBC now repeating the story here, which it says it got from La Republica here (Google translation here.) [More...]

Update 6/7/10, 10:30 pm: Peru news reports say Joran has confessed, details here.

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I'm still following the confusing reports from Peru on Joran Van der Sloot. My Spanish is getting better by the day because the Google and other online translators are pretty awful, and I've found that by reading the Spanish, I get a more accurate sense, even accounting for the words I don't know. Also, their pronouns are often wrong and in the wrong place making it hard to figure out who they are talking about. It's clearer to me reading the Spanish.

That said, while I can understand most of the written Spanish, I'm not able to translate it into English, so especially when pressed for time (like now) I may move to summaries, with links to the Spanish. From what I gather today: [More..]

Update: Joran will be held at the Miguel Castro Castro prison for the duration of the investigation phase. The prison was the subject of a huge lawsuit in 2006 for violation of prisoners' rights. (see end of this post for more.)

Update: Report from Peru: Joran is refusing to answer questions without a lawyer. Smart move, if true. He also reportedly asked for a non-Dutch attorney and said he was not arrested in Chile but surrendered, knowing he was being sought. Maybe that's why he wasn't handcuffed.

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Original post: Netherlands Offers Defense Attorney to Joran Van der Sloot

Peru may come to regret the gratuitous perp walk of Joran Van der Sloot. A few days ago, the Netherlands said it would not provide a lawyer for Joran Van der Sloot. Today, that's changed.

Peruvian news is reporting (translation here, another article here , with translation here) that a judge in Peru has extended the detention of Joran Van der Sloot for 7 days. Under Peruvian law, he was to be presented to a judge within 24 hours of being expelled from Chile.

This afternoon, at the request of Ninfa Espinoza Sotomayor, head of Criminal Prosecution in Lima, police took Joran to the office of the Public Ministry and then back to the police headquarters at Dirincri.

Here are the images from the hotel security camera. (Another video of images with times is here.) Here is the Peru Constitution .

Joran Van der Sloot has arrived in Lima where he was taken to the Criminal Investigation Department (Dirincri) of the National Police on Spain Avenue. A press conference was held and he was perp-walked for the media. You can watch a video here. (Update: Here's a better one, they start the perp walk at 3 minutes in.)

Peruvian Minister Octavio Salazar declined to give details of the investigation. Nor did they answer questions asked by journalists. Apparently, he will now be interrogated.

He faces up to three days in the dungeons of the Dirincri and then [he will] be made available to the Peruvian justice. The judge will decide which prison the Dutchman [goes to.]

[More...]

Update 6/7: He is still at the police headquarters facility. Reports that he will be moved to Miguel Castro Castro are now contradicted by the ex-prison chief, who says it is not secure enough to protect him. The ex-chief now thinks he will go to the maximum prison at Piedras Gordas, which he says does have adequate security. More here. This does seem to be his opinion, not fact. He's the former prison head. Article from Peru here.

Update 6/6: Joran Van der Sloot is being moved to the Miguel Castro Castro maximum security prison. Details here.

Getting details on the Peruvian penal code and procedural rules when you can't read Spanish is no easy task. Even Lexis and Westlaw offered little help. Our State Department has some basic information in this report dated March, 2010:

Trial Procedures

The justice system is based on the Napoleonic Code. The prosecutor investigates cases and submits an opinion to a first instance judge, who determines if sufficient evidence exists to open legal proceedings. The judge conducts an investigation, evaluates facts, determines guilt or innocence, and issues a sentence. All defendants are presumed innocent; they have the right to be present at trial, to call witnesses, and to be represented by counsel, although in practice the public defender system often failed to provide indigent defendants with qualified attorneys. The Ministry of Justice provided indigent persons with access to an attorney at no cost, although these attorneys were often poorly trained.

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The FBI set up Joran Van der Sloot to extort money from a representative of Beth Holloway in Aruba.

So it seems it wasn't Joran's idea to call Beth Holloway and offer details for cash, it was her and the FBI's idea. They probably hoped that if arrested on the extortion charge, they'd be able to get him to Alabama and the FBI could question him about Natalie's murder. Also likely in on the plot: the lawyer for Mrs. Holloway, John Q. Kelly, who was seen in Aruba that week. Question: Did the money wired to Joran belong to the F.B.I.?

So Joran took the bait and got a down payment, and gave or intended to give false information, just like he has before. Why would he do that? Maybe because he has no real information since he didn't kill Natalee Holloway or dispose of her body? Of course, no one wants to believe that. That requires the presumption of innocence, and only guilt sells in the American media.

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Joran Van der Sloot, expelled from Chile, is en route to Peru where officials want to question him about the murder of Stephany Flores.

It will be a long day -- he left Chile at 8:55 a.m. (handcuffed this time) with three detectives in a plane.

The plane will undertake the five hour plus journey to the border, stopping in San Padro de Atacama to refuel, before touching down in Arica, in the north of Chile. The suspect will then be taken over the border to Peru by land and handed over to Peruvian authorities.

On their side, Peruvian police have begun arrangements to receive the suspect at Santa Rosa, Tacna, the southernmost city in Peru. From Tacna, van der Sloot will be transported by air to the the Peruvian capital, Lima.

To avoid the delays an extradition process can take, Chile agreed to expel Joran as being "an undesirable" or illegally in the country, which allows them to return him to the country from which he crossed into Chile, which is Peru. [More...]

Update: Wire service reporting Joran Van der Sloot will be extradited to Peru tomorrow. Sounds like either he agreed to it or he's not being extradited, but expelled. I'm getting more and more convinced he didn't kill anyone and the authorities know it.

Joran Van der Sloot was arrested in Chile today and is in custody awaiting a decision from Peru on how it wants to proceed.

Van der Sloot was also charged in federal court in the Northern District of Alabama with extortion and wire fraud. The amended complaint is here. He's accused of trying to sell information about the whereabouts of Natalee Holloway's body and how she died.

Authorities in Peru say he and Stephany Flores were seen going to his hotel room about 5:00 a.m. Sunday, and Joran was seen leaving the hotel alone four hours later. Flores' body wasn't found until Wednesday. There's no mention of whether he was bloody or disheveled when seen leaving the hotel, but the cab driver who took him to Chile doesn't mention his appearance being out of the ordinary.

In Lima, police Gen. Cesar Guardia said Flores, who had been seen with the suspect early Sunday, was found Wednesday lying face down on the floor of van der Sloot's hotel room. Her neck was broken, and she was fully clothed, with no signs of having been sexually abused, Guardia told The Associated Press. Authorities found no potential murder weapons in the room, Garcia said.

This is just too bizarre. Joran Van Der Sloot is being sought for the murder of a young Peruvian woman this past weekend. The bloody murder occurred in a Lima hotel room rented by him.

Officials believe Flores was killed exactly five years after Holloway's May 30, 2005, disappearance. Flores was found beaten and stabbed to death in a room booked in van der Sloot's name, police said. A hotel employee told police that Flores entered the hotel early Sunday morning with van der Sloot.

....Flores left a friend's home Wednesday morning and was last seen that evening leaving a casino with Van der Sloot, according local media quoting to the woman's father, Ricardo Flores, a Peruvian businessman and racecar driver. Surveillance cameras caught the pair leaving the casino together.

Van der Sloot arrived in Peru on May 14 for a poker tournament. Authorities believe he fled Peru after the murder, crossed into Chile and is en route to Argentina.