Joran van der Sloot âseverely beatenâ in Peruvian jail, lawyer says
Joran van der Sloot has been “severely beaten” in a Peruvian jail, according to his lawyer.
ABC News quoted the lawyer for the 35-year-old van der Sloot, Maximo Altez, as saying that he does not believe the beating was related to his client’s expected extradition to the U.S. on extortion charges, but rather to gang rules inside the Callapalca Prison where he is currently being held.
Van der Sloot has long been suspected in the disappearance and death of Mountain Brook High School graduate Natalee Holloway, who was visiting Aruba in 2005. He has never been charged in her death.
A Dutch national from Aruba, van der Sloot is currently serving a 28-year prison sentence in Peru for the 2010 murder of Lima college student Stephany Flores. Flores was killed five years to the day of Natalee’s disappearance.
The entrance of the Challapalca maximum-security prison, where Joran Van der Sloot is serving a 28-year sentence for the murder of Stephany Flores, in Tacna, Peru, Friday, May 12, 2023. The chief suspect in the unsolved 2005 disappearance of U.S. student Natalee Holloway is poised to face charges linked to the young woman’s vanishing for the first time after the government of Peru authorized his temporary extradition to the U.S. (AP Photo/Elmer Jilaja)AP
A Peruvian executive order earlier this month paved the way for van der Sloot to be extradited to the U.S. to face federal charges he extorted thousands from Natalee Holloway’s mother.
He is accused of telling Beth Holloway that he would lead her to Natalee’s body in exchange for $250,000. Holloway paid van der Sloot a $25,000 down payment only to find out that he lied about the location of Natalee’s remains.
A federal grand jury in Birmingham indicted van der Sloot in 2010 on charges of extortion and wire fraud.
According to Altez, van der Sloot is currently in the Peruvian prison’s medical aisle. The lawyer is requesting van der Sloot be moved to another prison for his own safety.