| Published: | Jun 11, 2010 11:19 AM EDT |
| Updated: | Jun 11, 2010 7:41 AM EDT |
LIMA, Peru (AP) - Dutch murder suspect Joran van der Sloot told
police investigators that he knows the location of the body of
missing U.S. teen Natalee Holloway, the chief of Peru's criminal
police said.
"He let slip that he knew the place where this person was
buried," Gen. Cesar Guardia told The Associated Press.
Guardia said, however, that the 22-year-old Dutchman told
investigators "he would only testify (on the matter) before Aruba
authorities."
Guardia said that he didn't know how seriously to take Van der
Sloot's statement given his history of dubious statements about the
2005 disappearance in Aruba of the Alabama teen.
Van der Sloot remains the lone suspect in the case, which came
up in front of Peruvian police as the Dutchman confessed to killing
Stephany Flores, a 21-year-old woman from Lima, Guardia told the
AP.
Sheathed in a bulletproof vest, Van der Sloot was moved Thursday
across downtown Lima to a cell at the prosecutor's office as
officials prepared to file charges in the May 30 killing of Flores,
who police say he met playing poker at a casino three days earlier.
Flores was killed five years to the day after Holloway
disappeared and prosecutors have until Saturday to file charges in
the case.
Van der Sloot's newly hired attorney asked a judge Thursday to
declare his client's confession void on the grounds he made it in
the presence of a defense lawyer appointed by police.
The attorney, Maximo Altez, could not be reached directly for
comment. A person answering his cell phone identified himself as
the lawyer's secretary and said Altez was unavailable. Later calls
went unanswered.
Guardia dismissed the defense claim, calling the confession
wholly admissible in court. In addition to the government-appointed
defense attorney, he said, a translator assigned by the Dutch
Embassy was present at Monday's confession.
"The incriminatory elements were so powerful that he had to
confess," Guardia said, adding that the evidence included blood
stains found on Van der Sloot's clothing.
If tried and convicted on murder charges, Van der Sloot would
face from 15 to 35 years in prison.
Guardia said Peruvian interrogators had restricted their
questioning to the death of Flores, the daughter of a circus
promoter and former race car driver.
The May 30, 2005 disappearance of Holloway on the Dutch
Caribbean island remains unsolved.
Efforts by the FBI to try to solve it may have inadvertently
helped fund the travel that enabled the murder of Flores in Van der
Sloot's hotel room.
Believing it was closing in on Van der Sloot, the FBI videotaped
and allowed him to be paid $25,000 in a sting operation in Aruba
last month. But it held off on arresting him, and he took the money
and flew to Peru.
Guardia told the AP in an interview that the 6-foot-3
(190-centimeter-tall) Van der Sloot impressed investigators with
both his intelligence and brutality.
He said the husky Dutchman grabbed Flores and smashed her with
an elbow before strangling her and throwing her to the floor of his
room.
The general said Van der Sloot took Flores' cash, about $300
worth of Peruvian currency, two credit cards and her national ID
card.
Guardia said Van der Sloot attested to killing Flores because
she found out about the Aruba case by using his laptop without his
permission while went out for coffee.
But he said police do not necessarily believe him and think he
may have killed Flores before going out and returning to the hotel
room with two cups of coffee and rolls.
Col. Miguel Canlla, chief of homicide investigations, told the
AP that Van der Sloot took off his shirt after strangling Flores
and put it on her. He said the Dutchman wanted to put her body into
a suitcase but couldn't.
"He is cold, calculating and cynical," Canlla said.
The evidence against the Dutchman includes hotel security camera
video showing Flores and Van der Sloot entering his hotel room
together and the Dutchman leaving alone four hours later.
Security camera video from the Atlantic City early on the
morning of her death shows Flores arriving at a poker table where
Van der Sloot is sitting with other players, shaking his hand as if
they met before and then taking the seat next to him. The two later
leave together.
Van der Sloot confessed, police say, on his third full day in
police custody and a full week after he fled into northern Chile.
He was charged with extortion in the United States on June 2 -
the day of his arrest in Chile - in a case the commenced after Van
der Sloot contacted John Kelly, a New York lawyer for Holloway's
mother, Beth Twitty, in April, according to an affidavit.
The Dutchman allegedly was seeking $250,000 in exchange for the
location of the young woman's body, how she died and the identity
of those involved.
Van der Sloot's father died in February and he "wanted to come
clean, but he also wanted money," said Bo Dietl, a private
investigator who worked with Kelly on the case.
After consulting with Twitty, Kelly contacted the FBI.
It sent 10 to 12 agents to Aruba for a sting operation, he said,
in which Kelly on May 10 gave Van der Sloot $10,000 in cash and
another $15,000 was wired to a bank account.
Van der Sloot was told he would get $225,000 once the body was
found, Dietl said. According to the affidavit, Van der Sloot
insisted that a written contract be signed between him and Twitty.
Van der Sloot was secretly videotaped by the FBI in an Aruba
hotel telling Kelly he pushed Holloway down, that she hit her head
on a rock and died, the affidavit says. He said he then contacted
his father, who helped him bury the body.
Kelly and Van der Sloot went to where the Dutchman said he and
his father had put Holloway - in the foundation of a house.
No body has been found, however.
And the affidavit says Van der Sloot admitted in a May 17 e-mail
- he was in Peru by then - that he had lied about the location of
Holloway's remains.
It was not the first time Van der Sloot has admitted to having
lied about the case. Several times, he made confessions he later
retracted.
Van der Sloot was the last person seen with Holloway before the
girl vanished on the last night of a high school graduation trip.
He was arrested twice but released both times for a lack of
evidence.
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