Dutch suspect in Peru murder in Chilean custody

[June 04, 2010]  LIMA, Peru (AP) -- A Dutch man linked to the 2005 disappearance of U.S. teen Natalee Holloway is in custody in Chile, facing potential murder charges in Peru and extortion charges in the U.S.

Joran van der Sloot was detained in a taxi Thursday after crossing the border from Peru, where authorities say the 22-year-old man is the prime suspect in Sunday's murder of 21-year-old Stephany Flores.

Authorities planned to fly van der Sloot back to the Peruvian border Friday morning, according to a Chilean police spokesman who spoke on condition that he not be named in line with department policy.

Chile's Interior Ministry was considering whether to send van der Sloot back to Peru, although officials say they have yet to receive an arrest warrant issued by Peru in connection with Sunday's killing of Flores.

A fixture on TV true-crime shows after Holloway's disappearance in Aruba, the Dutchman did not speak or even turn his head when photographers shouted his name as Chilean police escorted him, without handcuffs, into a Santiago station for questioning.

Aruban authorities didn't prosecute van der Sloot even after he was caught on video saying he had asked a friend to dump Holloway's body. The Alabama teen's family was outraged by how Aruban authorities handled the case, and now the family of another young woman wants justice.

"This isn't a coincidence, this murder," Flores' father, Lima entertainment impresario Ricardo Flores, told reporters after van der Sloot's arrest.

Flores, a 48-year-old former race car driver and sometime politician, buried his daughter Thursday in the upscale Jardines de la Paz cemetery accompanied by about 100 mourners. He called on authorities to immediately bring van der Sloot to Peru to face justice.

"It's not just about my daughter," he said. "There's a matter pending in Aruba, and we don't know how many more remain unpunished."

The same day he was arrested in Chile, Van der Sloot was charged in Alabama with trying to extort $250,000 in return for giving the location of Holloway's body and describing the circumstances of her death. Federal prosecutors did not say who was allegedly extorted, but filed a sworn statement saying that van der Sloot got a partial payment of $15,000 wired to a Netherlands bank.

Stephany Flores' neck was broken in a hotel room registered to van der Sloot, who police believe met the University of Lima business student for the first time the previous night at a nearby casino. Her body was found by a maid late Tuesday.

She was fully clothed and there were no signs she had been sexually assaulted, the chief of Peru's criminal police, Gen. Cesar Guardia, told The Associated Press.

"The room was a complete mess," he said in an interview. He added that no potential murder weapon was found, indicating the killer may have used his bare hands.

Guardia added that police are investigating why it took until Tuesday night for hotel staff to discover the body.

Van der Sloot remains the prime suspect in the disappearance of Holloway, an 18-year-old who was celebrating her high school graduation on the Dutch Caribbean island of Aruba when she disappeared May 30, 2005. He told investigators he left her on a beach, drunk. That's the last anyone saw of her. Van der Sloot was twice arrested in her disappearance -- and twice released for insufficient evidence.

"If they have enough proof that he committed the crime in Peru, maybe, just maybe, that might help to get him to confess in Natalee's case. It just might crack him," a Holloway family lawyer, Vinda de Souza, told the AP.

A spokeswoman for Holloway's mother, Beth, issued a statement saying she "extends her deepest sympathy" to the Flores family "and prays for swift and sure justice."

Van der Sloot put up no resistance when he was detained Thursday about halfway to the Pacific coast from Santiago, deputy Chilean investigative police spokesman Fernando Ovalle said.

Peruvian authorities had issued an arrest warrant for him through Interpol after learning van der Sloot had crossed into northern Chile on Monday.

Van der Sloot checked into the room where Flores' body was found May 14 after arriving on a flight from Colombia, Guardia said. He was in Peru for a poker tournament and it appears he and Flores met Saturday evening at Atlantic City, the Lima casino hosting the tourney, Guardia said.

The police chief said Flores was killed between 5 a.m. Sunday, when the victim and suspect were seen entering his room by a hotel employee, and about 8:45 a.m., when two people saw van der Sloot leave.

"Various things aren't very clear," Guardia said, among them the killer's motive.

It certainly wasn't money, he said. Van der Sloot had no problem paying for his travel to Chile.

Truck driver Luis Aparcana said van der Sloot gave him 1,500 Peruvian soles ($525) to take him from Ica, a town south of Lima, to the Chilean border. The Dutchman didn't speak Spanish very well and carried two suitcases, he said in a TV interview.

Aparcana said van der Sloot appeared "worried, because he kept smoking cigarettes. He didn't have a cell phone but he had a laptop that he would take out, handle and then put back."

Lawyers for van der Sloot did not immediately comment. On Wednesday, a lawyer in New York who has represented him, Joe Tacopina, cautioned against a rush to judgment.

"Joran van der Sloot has been falsely accused of murder once before. The fact is he wears a bull's-eye on his back now and he is a quote-unquote usual suspect when it comes to allegations of foul play," Tacopina said.

The Holloway case has followed many twists and turns.

Two years ago, a Dutch television crime reporter captured hidden-camera footage of van der Sloot saying he was with Holloway when she collapsed on a beach from being drunk. He said he believed she was dead and asked a friend to dump her body in the sea. Judges subsequently refused to arrest van der Sloot on the basis of the tape.

The journalist, Peter de Vries, reported later in 2008 that he had documented van der Sloot recruiting Thai women in Bangkok for sex work in the Netherlands.

[Associated Press; By FRANK BAJAK and FRANKLIN BRICENO]

Associated Press writers Eva Vergara in Santiago, Chile, Carla Salazar in Lima, Kendall Weaver in Montgomery, Alabama, Michael Warren in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Michael Melia in San Juan, Puerto Rico, contributed to this report.

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