Joran van der Sloot has waived his right to a speedy trial and asked for an extension on pretrial deadlines, including whether or not he will plead guilty or move forward through the court process.

Although van der Sloot, now 35, has long been suspected in the disappearance and death of the Mountain Brook High School graduate Natalee Holloway while she was 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.

A federal grand jury in Birmingham indicted van der Sloot on June 30, 2010, on charges of wire fraud and extortion.

Van der Sloot’s federal public defender, Kevin Butler, on Monday asked the court for a 30-day extension on those pretrial deadlines and asked that the court continue trial setting for at least 60 days.

The deadline for van der Sloot to inform the judge whether he intends to plead guilty or go to trial is currently set for July 17.

The judge has not yet ruled on van der Sloot’s motion, but the Northern District of Alabama U.S. Attorney’s Office, which is prosecuting van der Sloot, is not opposing the defense’s request, court records show.

“Because undersigned counsel needs additional time to review the discovery, investigate this case, and prepare for trial, it is in the interest of justice to continue the motions deadline and the trial setting,’’ Butler wrote.

Van der Sloot on June 8 was extradited from Peru, where he is serving 28 years for the 2010 murder of college student Stephany Flores, to Alabama. The following day, he made his initial appearance in court and pleaded not guilty to the wire fraud and extortion charges.

He is being held in the Shelby County Jail.

The case is being prosecuted by Lloyd Peeples, chief of the U.S. Attorney’s Criminal Division, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Catherine Crosby.

Prosecutors contend that van der Sloot told Holloway for an initial payment of $25,000, he would take the Holloway’s 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.

The affidavit said Natalee Holloway died after Joran van der Sloot threw her to the ground when she attempted to stop him from leaving her.

The affidavit also says that his late father, Paulus van der Sloot, then helped him dispose of her body.

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.