Nearly 18 years after Alabama teenager Natalee Holloway vanished on a graduation trip to Aruba, the prime suspect in her disappearance will be extradited to the US, her family announced this week.
Joran van der Sloot, 35, will be extradited from Peru to Birmingham, Alabama, on charges of fraud and extortion related to Holloway’s disappearance, the missing woman’s mother, Beth, shared in a statement late Wednesday.
The Dutch native was one of the last people seen with Holloway, 18, who vanished after leaving an Oranjested bar with him and two others in the early hours of May 30, 2005.
The Holloway case subsequently sparked a media firestorm that dominated international headlines for several years.
Her body was never recovered, and she was declared legally dead in 2012.
“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.
“She would be 36 years old now. 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.”
In 2010, a grand jury in Alabama indicted van der Sloot on wire fraud and extortion charges based on evidence that he tried to swindle $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 said her body was buried.
An FBI affidavit states that he later admitted to fabricating the location.
Van der Sloot is in Peru serving a 28-year sentence for the murder of Stephany Flores, which took place exactly five years to the day after Holloway’s disappearance.
The then-22-year-old met Flores, 21, at a Lima casino after powerhouse defense lawyer Joe Tacopina — who recently represented Donald Trump in his civil rape trial — secured his release from prison in Aruba, where he was being held based on evidence linking him to Holloway’s disappearance.
Peruvian officials previously only agreed to extradite van der Sloot to the US after he finished serving the murder sentence, CNN reported.
George Seymore, CEO of Patriot Strategies, the firm representing Holloway’s family, told CNN on Wednesday that the formal extradition process is expected to start on Thursday.
Van der Sloot’s attorney, Maximo Altez, said he plans to fight the decision.
“I am going to challenge that resolution. I am going to oppose it since he has the right to a defense,” he vowed.
Van der Sloot — who was disciplined earlier this year for selling cocaine behind bars — married a Peruvian woman in 2014. The couple shares one child.
With Post wires
