Police arrest suspects in Holloway case By MARGARET WEVER, Associated Press Writer ORANJESTAD, Aruba - Three young men previously detained as suspects in the 2005 disappearance of American teenager Natalee Holloway were re-arrested Wednesday, the Aruban public prosecutor's office said, citing new evidence in the case.
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Joran van der Sloot of the Netherlands and two Surinamese brothers, Satish and Deepak Kalpoe, were arrested on suspicion of involvement in voluntary manslaughter and causing serious bodily harm that resulted in the death of Holloway, the prosecutor's office said in a statement.
Holloway, of Mountain Brook, Ala., was last seen leaving a bar with the three men on May 30, 2005, hours before she was scheduled to board a plane home with high school classmates celebrating their graduation on the Dutch Caribbean island. She was 18 at the time.
Hundreds of volunteers, Aruban soldiers, police and FBI agents spread out across the island for the missing teen. Later efforts would include divers, Dutch F-16 jets equipped with search equipment, and specially trained dogs. No trace was ever found of her.
Van der Sloot and the Kalpoe brother had previously been detained on suspicion of taking part in her death, but they denied involvement and a judge released them for lack of evidence.
Van der Sloot, 20, was re-arrested in the Netherlands, where he was attending university. The Kalpoe brothers — Deepak is 24, Satish, 21 — were taken into custody in Aruba.
Authorities "ordered their renewed arrest because further investigation into the disappearance has led to new incriminating evidence," the office said without providing further details. Officials there could not immediately be reached for further comment.
The brothers were expected to make an initial appearance in an Aruban court Friday, at which point prosecutors were expected to present the new evidence to a judge. A court date in the island had not yet been set for van der Sloot.
Wim de Bruin, a spokesman for the Dutch national prosecutor's office, said van der Sloot could be sent to Aruba without an extradition hearing and the transfer would occur "within several days."
In April, investigators from the Netherlands dug around the home of van der Sloot's family for two days without revealing what prompted the search. Then in May, Dutch and Aruban investigators visited the home where Deepak and Satish Kalpoe live with their parents for what authorities termed an "inspection," without revealing details.
Vinda de Sousa, an attorney Dave Holloway, Natalee's father, said she has left a message for the family but has not talked to them and is not privy to the new evidence.
"I'm as excited as the Holloway family can be," she said. "Anything new in this case, or any development, just gives you rekindled hope that one day this will be solved. I know the investigation never stopped."
By MARGARET WEVER, Associated Press Thursday, November 22, 2007
ORANJESTAD, Aruba -- The father of missing American teenager Natalee Holloway will relaunch a search for evidence of her remains in waters off Aruba, he said Thursday after police re-arrested three suspects in her 2005 disappearance.
While authorities searched the sea to depths of 330 feet, Dave Holloway told The Associated Press that he believes his 18-year-old daughter was thrown into deeper waters -- a belief based on talks with a police official and a private forensic expert.
Holloway said a private boat owner is providing divers, sonar equipment and the ability to map the ocean floor.
"It's like this: we've searched all the land areas ... It's common knowledge on the island that if someone were to dispose of the body, it would be out in the ocean," he said by telephone
Holloway said he would alert police on the Dutch Caribbean island if anything is found.
Authorities announced Wednesday they had found "new incriminating evidence" and re-arrested three men -- Dutch student Joran van der Sloot and brothers Satish and Deepak Kalpoe of Suriname -- on suspicion of involvement in voluntary manslaughter and causing serious bodily harm that resulted in Holloway's death.
"I hope I'm not going to be disappointed," Dave Holloway said. "We've seen these arrests and re-arrests in the past."
The 18-year-old from Mountain Brook, Ala., was last seen leaving a bar with the three men on May 30, 2005, hours before she was scheduled to fly home with high school classmates celebrating their graduation.
A search by hundreds of volunteers, soldiers, police and FBI agents -- even Dutch air force planes -- turned up no trace of her.
Van der Sloot and the Kalpoe brothers were first detained in June 2005, but they denied involvement in the woman's death and a judge later released them for lack of evidence.
Van der Sloot, 20, was re-arrested in the Netherlands, where he was attending a university. The Kalpoe brothers -- Deepak is 24, Satish, 21 -- were taken into custody in Aruba.
On Thursday, a Dutch judge cleared the way for van der Sloot's transfer to Aruba within days, prosecutor Dop Kruimel said in a telephone interview.
Van der Sloot's mother, Anita, said by telephone that investigators had recently questioned her family and that of the Kalpoe brothers.
"The questions they asked were so obvious: things like, 'Why did Joran leave his shoes on the beach?'" she said, referring to the place where her son said he kissed Holloway alone before her disappearance. "I think it's ridiculous after two-and-a-half years to be doing this."
The brothers were expected to make an initial appearance in an Aruba court Friday, when prosecutors were expected to present the new evidence to a judge.
They are being held in separate jails, and Aruba's chief prosecutor Hans Mos said prosecutors believe they should be represented by separate attorneys to prevent a conflict of interest.
The Kalpoes' attorney, David Kock, did not return a call for comment Thursday, but he told a local radio station that the arrests were "an action of despair."
"There was no reason for their arrest now," he said. "We will take all kinds of measures to give our clients their freedom as soon as possible." In April, investigators from the Netherlands dug around the home of van der Sloot's family for two days without revealing what prompted the search. Then in May, Dutch and Aruban investigators visited the home where Deepak and Satish Kalpoe live with their parents for what authorities called an "inspection." --------
Associated Press writers David McFadden and Danica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Mike Corder in Amsterdam, Netherlands contributed to this report.
If they never find her body, than I think that she was sold off to the slave trade 'mafia'. And I also think that these kids are just that 'kids'...and shouldn't be going to these places to begin with. What happened to the days when you just had a graduation party in your back yard? I guess today you go to another country to celebrate....NUTS!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
By DANICA COTO, Associated Press Saturday, December 8, 2007
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- Aruba's chief prosecutor said he will close the case of missing American teenager Natalee Holloway by the end of the month unless his office finds that there is enough evidence to charge someone with a major crime.
The prosecutor, Hans Mos, said he would not comment about the kind of evidence his office is reviewing but that he does not anticipate finding Holloway's remains and prosecuting a case without them would be "very hard." "We promised the suspects that after Dec. 31, we will not pursue the case," Mos told The Associated Press Friday. "This investigation should end at a certain point." Holloway's parents did not return multiple messages left at their homes and on their cell phones. No one has been formally charged in the investigation, which critics have said was botched in its early stages by Aruban authorities. The probe has revolved around three suspects: Joran van der Sloot, a 20-year-old Dutch citizen and brothers Deepak Kalpoe, 24, and Satish Kalpoe, 21, from Surinam. They were the last people known to see Holloway before she vanished on the night of May 30, 2005. All three, who have denied any role in her disappearance, have been arrested several times -- the latest arrests coming last month -- but released after different judges ruled there was not enough evidence to keep holding them. Mos told the AP he will drop the case unless prosecutors in his office agree before the New Year that they have strong enough evidence to go to court. He said he imposed the deadline himself earlier this year because he feels two years is a reasonable amount of time for bringing charges against someone. Mos said he and the Holloway family feel pursuing a minor charge "doesn't serve a purpose." A person convicted of making a body disappear, for example, would serve only six months in prison, he said. The search for Holloway spanned more than two years and involved hundreds of volunteers, Aruban soldiers, FBI agents and even Dutch F-16 jets laden with search equipment. "We have a strong conviction that something happened that night, and that it was a very serious thing," Mos said. "The question is whether we are able to prove it." He said he does not anticipate ever finding Holloway's remains. "It's very hard to try a case without a body," he said. "It's not impossible, but you need substantial evidence that somebody was killed." Authorities have combed sand dunes, drained a pond and dove into the island's clear waters. They have detained people including a disc jockey, a casino croupier, two former hotel security guards and even van der Sloot's father, a judge in training at the time. False leads have included blond hairs attached to a duct tape found along Aruba's coast, and a bloody mattress later linked to a dead dog. "The Aruban prosecution is going around in circles," said Joseph Tacopina, one of van der Sloot's attorneys. "They've bumbled this case from the beginning." In 2005, Aruba's prime minister met with Holloway's mother and said authorities made mistakes at the start of their investigation. Holloway arrived in Aruba to celebrate her high school graduation. On the last night she was seen alive, the Mountain Brook, Alabama native attended a beach concert featuring Boyz II Men and Lauryn Hill and then ate and danced at Carlos 'N Charlie's bar and restaurant. She never showed up for her return flight, and police found her passport in her hotel room with her packed bags.
Aruba closes investigation into disappearance of U.S. teenager BY MARGARET WEVER The Associated Press
ORANJESTAD, Aruba — Prosecutors closed their investigation into the disappearance of American teenager Natalee Holloway, saying Tuesday they still believe three young men were involved in her death but can’t prove it after 932 days of searching failed to turn up a body. The three main suspects in the case were re-arrested last month after prosecutors in Aruba discovered online chat sessions they hoped would break the case open. But none of the men talked in custody, and without the 18-year-old’s body, prosecutors said they had no recourse but to close the most notorious missing persons case in the Caribbean. If the three suspects were put on trial, the lack of evidence “would lead to an acquittal,” the Public Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement. Moving Holloway into the coldcase files “is a tough burden to bear” for her parents, they acknowledged, but the prosecutors said they had little choice. “The public prosecutor’s offi ce and the police have gone the extra mile and have exhausted all their powers and techniques in order to solve the mystery of the disappearance of the girl,” the statement read. Holloway disappeared on May 30, 2005, the last night of a trip with members of her Mountain Brook, Ala., high school graduating class. She was last seen leaving a bar with the three suspects: Joran van der Sloot and brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpoe, who all lived on this Dutch island off the coast of Venezuela. Holloway’s parents, who divorced years before her disappearance, have pushed hard to fi nd what happened to their daughter — and Americans have followed every development. Police, soldiers and hundreds of volunteers combed hillsides and beaches of this 75-square-mile island. Investigators partially drained a pond. Divers searched the sea bed offshore. Dutch F-16 jets equipped with search equipment conducted overflights. Dogs sniffed for a body. Investigators interviewed hundreds of potential witnesses and arrested — and re-arrested — several suspects. At times, it seemed Aruba itself was on trial, as some U.S. politicians and journalists assailed its ability to investigate the case. Holloway’s mother, Beth Twitty, is “terribly disappointed” with Tuesday’s decision, her spokeswoman said. “She was very hopeful the last couple weeks and she went down there and met with the prosecutor,” Sunny Tillman told The Associated Press. “He told her face-to-face that he had new and incriminating evidence, and that made her hopeful.”
By MARGARET WEVER, Associated Press Tuesday, February 5, 2008
ORANJESTAD, Aruba -- A hidden-camera interview with a Dutch student saying missing teenager Natalee Holloway was dead and that he had a friend dump her body at sea is admissible in court, the chief Aruban prosecutor said.
The courts in Aruba will likely accept the tape as evidence because it was recorded by a private citizen without any influence by authorities, Chief Prosecutor Hans Mos told reporters Monday. "I take it very seriously," Mos said of the video. The tape, which was first broadcast Sunday on Dutch television, has appeared to spur the investigation: Mos said authorities in the Netherlands searched two homes Monday where Joran Van der Sloot has lived while attending college there. A judge in Aruba denied a prosecution request to detain Van der Sloot based on the new information. Mos said they will file an appeal Tuesday and expect a decision within a week. The prosecutor declined to provide any details about the searches. Bert de Rooij, a lawyer for Van der Sloot in the Netherlands, said police took a hard drive and a laptop. De Rooij, speaking on Dutch television Monday, said the college student would make himself available for questioning by authorities if necessary. "As far as Joran is concerned, that can happen soon," he told the news program "Nova." In the secret recordings, Van der Sloot said Holloway, 18, was drunk and that she began shaking and slumped down on the beach as they were kissing in May 2005. "Suddenly she started shaking and then she didn't say anything," Van der Sloot said in Dutch, adding that he did not kill her. "I would never murder a girl." He said he panicked and tried but failed to revive her. He said that Holloway looked dead but that he could not be sure she was not still alive when a friend took her away. Van der Sloot identified the friend only as "Daury." Chris Lejeuz, an attorney for a 21-year-old man named Daury Rodriguez, who is an associate of Van der Sloot's, appeared with his client at a news conference in Oranjestad Monday and denied his client had any role in Holloway's death. Mos said prosecutors believe Van der Sloot was telling the truth in the video because he seemed to struggle as he told the story and repeated it several times. "Now, whether that is the truth, that has to be seen ..." he said. "Finally the court will have to decide whether this is a declaration ... that we can use as evidence in this court of law." In the interview, Van der Sloot speaks to Patrick van der Eem, a 34-year-old Dutch businessman who told ABC News that he befriended the younger man with the intention of prying a confession out of him. Van der Eem said he spent about two months getting to know Van der Sloot, regularly smoking marijuana together and playing poker late into the night, the businessman approached Dutch television crime reporter Peter R. de Vries, who rigged up a new Range Rover with secret cameras to capture their conversations. "Why did I want this? It's obvious. Everybody was looking for the truth for (Holloway's) mother," he told ABC News, which planned to broadcast the interview on its "20/20" program Monday night. "I'm a father. I have two children, a girl six years old and a boy two years old." Van der Eem, who grew up in the Caribbean, said he was angry with Van der Sloot for damaging the reputation of Aruba and the Netherlands. Joseph Tacopina, a lawyer for Van der Sloot, said his client was not responsible for the Alabama teenager's death and that the tapes do not amount to a confession. "There was no confession, no admission of a crime by Joran on any of these tapes, which is very telling," Tacopina said on ABC's "Good Morning America." Last week, Van der Sloot said he was lying in those conversations and denied that he had anything to do with Holloway's disappearance. In the secret footage, Van der Sloot spoke with a man he believed to be his friend, who gave him "drugs, marijuana, things like that," Tacopina told ABC. But Natalee's mother, Beth Twitty, told ABC: "I don't think any of us are surprised by his reaction (that his comments were fiction), but I know one thing. Once people see the video of Joran there are no more questions. There is no one who can walk away from this believing that he is innocent." She said Van der Sloot didn't even know if her daughter was alive or not. "Natalee never even had the chance for a medical doctor or a coroner, anyone, to determine (if she was alive)," Twitty said. Holloway, of Mountain Brook, Ala., was last seen leaving a bar with Van der Sloot and two Surinamese brothers hours before she was due to board a flight home. The three were arrested shortly after her disappearance and again in November, but released for lack of evidence. Prosecutors then dismissed their case against them, saying they lacked evidence even to prove a crime. All three have always denied any role in her disappearance.
I think it will just be another OJ Simpson fiasco.
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
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