BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – In 2005 Natalee Holloway, an 18-year-old American high school student, disappeared during a graduation trip to Aruba. She was never found and declared dead in 2014. Joran Van der Sloot was the prime suspect. Although he was briefly in custody, he was later released due to a lack of evidence and avoided prosecution in the case. Nevertheless, he’s serving a prison sentence for the 2010 murder of a Peruvian woman. Now he will be extradited to the U.S. to face fraud and extortion charges, according to reports.
Van der Sloot will be sent to the U.S. from Peru, Natalee’s mother, Beth Holloway announced in a news statement on Wednesday, Fox News Digital reported.
“Almost exactly eighteen years later, her perpetrator, Joran Van der Sloot, has been extradited to Birmingham to answer for his crimes,” she said. Peruvian authorities reportedly agreed to extradite the primary “person of interest” in Natalee Holloway’s disappearance and presumed murder.
Natalee Holloway’s body was never found, and no charges were filed against Joran Van der Sloot in the case.
Although Van der Sloot was one of the last people seen with Natalee Holloway who vanished after leaving an Oranjested bar with him and two others in the early hours of May 30, 2005, he was never prosecuted in the case due to insufficient evidence, the New York Post reported.
The young woman was discovered missing in Aruba when she failed to appear for her flight home to Alabama.
Although the Dutch native was never held accountable in Holloway’s disappearance, he is currently serving a 28-year prison sentence for the 2010 murder of a Peruvian citizen, 21-year-old Stephany Flores, according to Fox News.
Shortly after Flores’ death on May 30, 2010, Van der Sloot told law enforcement authorities he killed the woman in Peru in a fit of rage when she discovered on his laptop his connection to the disappearance of Holloway. Police forensic experts disputed the claim, Fox News reported in 2014.
Now the Peruvian government has agreed to temporarily hand over Van der Sloot to American officials “for his prosecution in the United States for the alleged commission of the crimes of extortion and fraud, to the grievance of Elizabeth Ann Holloway,” Peru Minister of Justice and Human Rights, Daniel Maurate Romero, said in a statement.
Peru’s ambassador to the U.S., Gustavo Meza-Cuadra, said he hopes “this action will enable a process that will help to bring peace to Mrs. Holloway and to her family, who are grieving in the same way that the Flores family in Peru is grieving for the loss of their daughter.”
In 2010, an Alabama grand jury indicted Van der Sloot on wire fraud and extortion charges based on evidence that he tried to manipulate $250,000 from Beth Holloway in exchange for information on her daughter’s fate.
During a recorded undercover operation, Van der Sloot showed a house where he claimed her remains were hidden, the New York Post reported.
According to an FBI affidavit, he later admitted to fabricating the location.
The case of the missing young woman captured intense media scrutiny and worldwide attention. Yet she was never found and declared legally dead in 2014.
“I was blessed to have had Natalee in my life for 18 years, and as of this month, I have been without her for exactly 18 years,” Beth Holloway wrote Wednesday.
