Natalee Holloway suspect Joran van der Sloot is extradited to the US
The main suspect in the disappearance of American student Natalee Holloway is expected to be extradited to the US on Thursday.
Holloway, who lived in suburban Birmingham, Alabama, was 18 when she vanished during a trip with classmates to Aruba in 2005. She was last seen leaving a bar with Dutch citizen Joran van der Sloot, then a student at an international school on the island.
Two weeks after Holloway’s disappearance, van der Sloot was identified as a suspect and detained, along with two Surinamese brothers. He was eventually released after investigators failed to find Holloway’s remains. A judge later declared the teen dead.
The federal charges filed in Alabama against van der Sloot stem from an accusation that he tried to extort the Holloway family in 2010, promising to lead them to her body in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars. A grand jury indicted him that year on one count each of wire fraud and extortion.
Van der Sloot allegedly used that money to escape to Peru, where he was convicted for the 2010 murder of a local woman.
His extradition moved forward after a Peruvian judge on Tuesday affirmed the government’s decision to temporarily transfer custody to US authorities.
This is a developing story ... check again for updates.
