van der Sloot...how long will justice take?

Published July 5, 2010 at 3:13 p.m.
Birmingham, Al  (WIAT)  It could take years to unravel the multiple mysteries of Joran van der Sloot and the women alleged to be his victims.

Joran van der Sloot sits in a Peruvian prison charged with the murder of 21 year old student Stephany Flores in a Lima casino hotel.  He's the prime suspect in the disappearance of Mountain Brook teenager Natalee Holloway on a graduation trip to Aruba five long years ago.  In a macabre note, Flores was murdered five years to the day of Holloway's disappearance.  Her last confirmed sighting?  With van der Sloot in an Aruban casino.

So what's taking so long to achieve more than speculation?  You have multiple countries, multiple jurisdictions.  Van der Sloots a Dutch citizen living in Aruba suspected of crimes involving Peruvian and American citizens.  He was arrested in Chile and has recently been indicted by Federal officials in Birmingham of wire fraud and extortion for allegedly taking money from the Holloway family for information about Natalee...and then providing no information.  More on extortion indictment.


The tale of meandering delays begins back in Aruba.   Van der Sloot's lawyer/father...now deceased...ran very effective legal interference for his son with the Aruban police and prosecutors.  Although questioned many times, Joran has never been charged in Natalee's disappearance.

In the Peruvian case, van der Sloot has tried...and is trying again...to get his confession thrown out claiming everything from coercion to not having an interpreter.  Both those appeals have been rejected.  Now van der Sloot is claiming he didn't have a legal and competent lawyer while all that was happening.  More on appeals

Van der Sloot's current lawyer has already conceded a strategy of "paralyzing the process".   He has vowed to take the case all the way to the
Inter-American Court of Human Rights.  More on "paralyze the process"

WakeUp Alabama legal analyst Holly Clemente takes a look at what that could mean.



Back | Read more at CBS 42