EXCLUSIVE: Interpol officials will begin coordinating extradition plans Friday for Joran van der Sloot, the prime suspect in the 2005 disappearance of Natalee Holloway, according to the agency’s Peruvian chief.
Van der Sloot is facing charges in the U.S. concerning Natalee Holloway’s 2005 disappearance during a Mountain Brook High School, Alabama, senior trip in Aruba. At the time, she was staying at a Holiday Inn resort in Noord, Aruba.
He’s being charged with extortion and wire fraud after allegedly trying to sell information regarding the whereabouts of Natalee Holloway’s body to Beth Holloway. He allegedly asked for a total of $250,000 — $25,000 upfront for the information, with the rest of the money to be paid out when Natalee Holloway’s remains were positively identified in Aruba, where she went missing.
However, prosecutors in the U.S. allege van der Sloot lied to Beth Holloway’s lawyer, John Q. Kelly, about where her daughter’s remains were located.
Joran van der Sloot is the prime suspect in the 2005 disappearance of Natalee Holloway. He is serving a prison sentence in Peru for murdering a 21-year-old woman named Stephany Flores in 2010. (Getty Images, AP)
In a Thursday interview with Fox News Digital, Col. Carlos López Aeda, the chief of Interpol in Lima, Peru, said he’s meeting with the FBI and officials with Peru’s National Penitentiary Institute to discuss details of van der Sloot’s extradition.
“The United States has already promised to return Joran after the process defined there. We are going to proceed with the extradition,” López Aeda said. “[Friday], I meet with the FBI and the prison police to coordinate the details of their transfers and define the extradition date.”
López Aeda added that while extraditions can be done through “a commercial flight,” van der Sloot’s extradition will “most likely” take place on a U.S. government airplane.
A general view of the Holiday Inn Resort in Noord, Aruba, Friday, May 12, 2023. The resort is where Natalee Holloway stayed in 2005 before she disappeared. (Mega for Fox News Digital)
López Aeda told Fox News Digital the meeting with the FBI and Peru’s National Penitentiary Institute will happen in person.
George Patriot Seymore, Beth Holloway’s spokesperson, told Fox News Digital on Wednesday that the FBI is handling the extradition, which is happening “within a week.” The FBI declined to comment.
Dutch citizen Joran van der Sloot is directed to his seat before his trial in the Lurigancho prison in Lima, Peru, Jan. 11, 2012. Van der Sloot, who was arrested but never charged in the 2005 disappearance of 18-year-old Alabama native Natalee Holloway on the Dutch Caribbean island of Aruba, told police he killed 21-year-old business student Stephany Flores after meeting her in a casino in Lima. (REUTERS/Pilar Olivares, File)
López Aeda’s comments come after van der Sloot’s lawyer, Maximo Altez, said the prime suspect in Natalee Holloway’s disappearance will not appeal the extradition.
Altez said van der Sloot is looking forward to fighting the wire fraud and extortion charges in the U.S., and said his client didn’t reach out to the Holloway family, but was “entrapped.”
Van der Sloot is facing a prison sentence in Peru for the murder of 21-year-old Stephany Flores in 2010. His original sentence was 28 years, but got more time handed to him because of a drug smuggling scandal in prison.
Beth Holloway fights back tears as she participates in the launch of the Natalee Holloway Resource Center on June 8, 2010 in Washington, DC. The non profit resource center was founded by Holloway and the National Museum of Crime & Punishment and was created to assist families of missing persons. Beth Holloway’s daughter Natalee is the Alabama teen who disappeared five years ago in Aruba. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
Natalee Holloway’s body was never found. In January 2012, van der Sloot pleaded guilty to killing Flores, and Natalee Holloway was legally declared dead that month.
Natalee Holloway’s mother, Beth, said in an earlier statement shared with Fox News Digital that justice the extradition gives a chance for justice to finally be served.
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Natalee Holloway was last seen alive in Aruba while on a Mountain Brook high school senior trip. (Federal Bureau of Investigation)
“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. She would be 36 years old now,” Beth Holloway said. “It has been a very long and painful journey, but the persistence of many is going to pay off. Together, we are finally getting justice for Natalee.”
Fox News’ Michael Ruiz and Haley Chi-Sing contributed to this report.
