Joran van der Sloot faces arraignment today in Beth Holloway extortion case
Joran van der Sloot is expected to face arraignment this morning in a Birmingham federal courtroom on charges he tried to extort the mother of missing Mountain Brook teen Natalee Holloway.
Follow us here throughout the day for updates.
Van der Sloot was extradited on Thursday from Peru, where he is serving 28 years for the 2010 murder of college student Stephany Flores, to Alabama.
See also: The key figures in Joran van der Sloot extortion case
The 35-year-old was whisked from a Birmingham airport to the Hoover City Jail.
He is expected to be arraigned at 11 a.m. today at the federal courthouse in Birmingham.
Although van der Sloot has long been suspected in the disappearance and death of the Mountain Brook High School graduate visiting Aruba in 2005, he has never been charged in connection to her death.
However, federal authorities in Alabama contend that in 2010 van der Sloot exploited the fear of Holloway’s mother, Beth, that she would never find her daughter’s body or know what happened to her unless she paid him $250,000.
For an initial payment of $25,000, he would take the Holloway representative to the location of Natalee’s body. Once the body was recovered and confirmed to be Natalee, he said, he would then collect the remaining $225,000.
Charged with extortion, an affidavit said Natalee Holloway died after Joran van der Sloot threw her to the ground when she attempted to stop him from leaving her.
See also: A timeline of the Natalee Holloway case
The affidavit says that his late father, Paulus van der Sloot, then helped him dispose of her body.
@al.comnews Nearly two decades have passed since Natalee Holloway, an American teenager, disappeared while on a graduation trip to Aruba. Joran van der Sloot, the main suspect in her case, is currently in Peru, serving time for murdering a young woman, Stephany Flores Ramirez, back in 2010. It was recently announced that Joran will be extradited to the United States to face charges in relation to Natalee’s case. Despite maintaining his innocence, no one has been brought to trial or currently faces charges in Natalee’s death, and her whereabouts remain unknown to this day. Watch this video and learn about the complex timeline surrounding the unsolved case of Natalee Holloway. Produced by: Amanda Khorramabadi #nataleeholloway #unsolved #missingperson #timeline ♬ 10 minutes techno・stylish and cool atmosphere(1391300) – Kazamasata
Van der Sloot told a representative for Beth Holloway that his father buried her remains in the gravel under the foundation of the single-story house.
He later admitted to the representative that he lied about the location of Natalee’s remains.
“I am hopeful some small semblance of justice will finally be realized may finally be realized, even though no act of justice will heal the pain we’ve endured,” a statement from Beth Holloway on Thursday read.
“For 18 years, I have lived with the unbearable pain of Natalee’s loss. Each day has been filled with unanswered questions and a longing for justice that has eluded us at every turn,” Holloway said.
“At the end of this, he has to be returned to Peru,” Van der Sloot’s attorney in Peru, Maximo Altez told The Associated Press. He will spend “at most two years in the United States.”