Suspect in Natalee Holloway case to be extradited to US
Fox Nation host Nancy Grace joined 'America's Newsroom' to discuss the latest on the case and why Joran van der Sloot is now facing extradition from Peru.
EXCLUSIVE: An Interpol official says that Joran van der Sloot will be extradited from Peru by FBI agents in the first week of June.
Van der Sloot is the prime suspect in the 2005 disappearance of Natalee Holloway during a Mountain Brook High School, Alabama, senior trip in Aruba. He's facing extortion and wire fraud charges after allegedly attempting to sell information regarding the whereabouts of Natalee Holloway's body to Beth Holloway.
According to federal prosecutors, van der Sloot 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.
Prosecutors also allege that van der Sloot lied to Beth Holloway's lawyer, John Q. Kelly, about where her daughter's remains were located, leading him to an area where Natalee Holloway's body ultimately wasn't located.
File picture dated January 6, 2012 of Dutch national Joran Van der Sloot during his preliminary hearing in court in the Lurigancho prison in Lima. The Peruvian Supreme Court has approved the extradition of Joran van der Sloot to the U.S. on charges of extorting money from the family of missing Alabama teen Natalee Holloway but it will not take place until he serves out his 28-year sentence for the 2010 murder of 21-year-old Stephany Flores. (Ernesto Benavides/AFP/GettyImages)
In an interview with Fox News Digital after a meeting with the FBI and other Peruvian agencies, Col. Carlos López Aeda, the chief of Interpol in Lima, Peru, said that van der Sloot will be made available to U.S. authorities on May 29 for extradition.
"As of May 29, he will be available so that the U.S. authorities can transfer him to the United States," López Aeda said. "They have indicated that, during the first week of June, an FBI aircraft with FBI agents will come to extradite him from a Peruvian Air Force base."
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)
The Interpol official said that the extradition shouldn't happen later than June 8 or 9.
He also said that van der Sloot will be transferred to a maximum security prison in Lima by May 25. Van der Sloot is currently being held at Challapalca Prison, which is almost a day's drive away from Lima.
Natalee Holloway was last seen alive in Aruba while on a Mountain Brook high school senior trip. (Federal Bureau of Investigation)
Before van der Sloot is extradited, he'll undergo several medical tests, López Aeda said.
"We are going to carry out the medical procedures to certify Joran's good health, the COVID tests that even the staff who are going to transfer him have to do, those of us who are going to participate in the security convoy and guarantee that all his rights are respected so that everything is carried out in the fastest and most efficient way unless the defense presents some appeal which we highly doubt it," López Aeda said.
"That's all for now, we're ready, we've done all the coordination in detail, now 'the ball is in the side of the United States", let them come and extradite him,'" he added.
Beth Holloway, mother of Natalee Holloway, speaks during the opening of the Natalee Holloway Resource Center (NHRC) at the National Museum of Crime & Punishment in Washington, June 8, 2010. Natalee, 18, of Mountain Brook, Alabama, vanished while on a high school graduation trip to Dutch-owned Aruba, an island in the Caribbean in 2005. She never showed up for a flight home and her disappearance made international headlines. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
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.
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 the extradition gives a chance for justice to finally be served.
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A general view of the Holiday Inn resort in Noord, Aruba, Friday, May 12, 2023. The Holiday Inn resort is where Natalee Holloway stayed in 2005 before she disappeared. (Mega for Fox News Digital)
"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.
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