Two FBI officials in Birmingham on Thursday detailed how Joran van der Sloot last week came to plead guilty to extortion in a case that led to him confessing to killing Natalee Holloway in Aruba in 2005.

The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect their identity as investigators.

Van der Sloot entered his guilty plea in wire fraud and the extortion of Natalee Holloway’s mother, Beth, the mother of the 18-year-old Mountain Brook High School student. He received a 20-year sentence on each.

Those sentences will be served concurrently with each other and also concurrently with his 28-year sentence for a 2010 murder in Peru. As part of a plea deal, van der Sloot said he kicked Natalee Holloway in the face and then bludgeoned her with a cinderblock when she refused his sexual advances.

“We want to make clear the amount of dedication and perseverance the agents, both past and present, the analysts and professional staff have put into this case to bring it to a successful conclusion,” one of the officials told AL.com

Here are details from the question and answer session:

The Northern District of Alabama issued the extortion indictment against van der Sloot in 2010. Why did this go to court in the U.S. in 2023?

Prior to that, he committed an act of murder in Peru earlier in 2010 which put us in a situation of dealing with a foreign government and an extradition treaty of getting him over this country to face the extortion charges early.

It was just working through the legal process to get him over to face the charges he was indicted for in this country.

We’ve never stopped working this case. Due to the nature of those events (the murder conviction), he was placed in jail and the thought process was that he wasn’t going to be released until he finished those sentences there to face those charges here.

In coordination with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and our government officials, they discovered an exception and due to the age of witnesses and evidence, we pursued that exception and that’s how he was allowed to come to the United States with the understanding that he would return back to custody there after facing trial here.

When is he going back to Peru?

That will be up to the U.S. Marshals Office. I know the judge in open court stated she wanted it to be done as soon as possible but the U.S. Marshals are responsible for that.

Can you say whether van der Sloot was initially agreeable or reluctant to confess to Natalee’s murder as part of his plea agreement on the extortion charges?

As it pertains to how reluctant he was or forthcoming or wanting to share his information, in this particular situation, there was a lot of conversation and coordination between his legal team and the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and we weren’t privy to those conversations.

We were, however, a part of the proffer session, so we he came to the proffer session, he did give the information that is part of the open record.

Can you describe the proffer session?

The proffer session took place at the Shelby County Jail where he’s been housed since he’s been here in Alabama.

The setting was a conference room.

On the government side, you had the case agents from Birmingham and Miami, the U.S. Attorney’s Office and on the defense side, van der Sloot had two of his attorneys from Alabama and he also had Dutch attorney’s there representing him for that proffer.

The proffer lasted just over three hours with a couple of short breaks in there. As far as his demeanor, I would say it was a professional business setting and both parties came in there understanding what the goal of the day was, which was for him to share the narrative of 2005 and 2010 with us.

It was a business-like approach.

Was there anything said that surprised y’all?

I would say that we were not surprised. The FBI, the team, has been working this thing for 18 years so we’ve considered and looked at just about every scenario you can imagine.

So, in preparing for that proffer session, we reviewed all the case files, our and others, talked to witnesses, retired agents, consulted with our Behavior Analysist Unit, everybody we thought could help us best prepare for that proffer.

So, when we walked in there, we were pretty sure what we would hear and were prepared for what he might say.

Are you confident he told the truth?

Yes.

Part of that proffer was ensuring that he satisfied the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the FBI and the Holloway family. And by the time we left that proffer, we were pretty satisfied that we had received the information that we needed to receive for that proffer to be executed.

We are confident that the information he provided in the proffer was truthful.

At what point was the Holloway family able to hear or see van der Sloot’s proffer (confession)?

The Holloway family was allowed to participate in the proffer and at the conclusion of them observing in the method that they observed, they were satisfied with the proffer session.

They were allowed to hear the proffer and we’re not going to comment in any further detail beyond that.

Were you met with any resistance from Aruba during entire investigation?

I’m not aware of any.

I think one of the strong things that took place in this case was our partnerships.

We have great partnerships with local, state, federal and foreign (officials) and that had a great effect on the outcome of this case and moving it forward as it did.