New Holloway Suspect Shuns Move to Aruba
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands – A Dutch national detained on suspicion of participating in the kidnapping and killing of Natalee Holloway in Aruba is fighting a request to bring him to the island, his attorney’s office said.
Gerard Spong said his client, a croupier at the casino in the hotel where Holloway was staying, was suspected of “assisting in the murder” of the Alabama high school senior.
Holloway was 18 when she disappeared in May 2005 during a graduation trip to the Dutch Caribbean island of Aruba with classmates. She was last seen leaving a bar with three young men on May 30.
Dutch marines, the Aruban Coast Guard, the FBI, and hundreds of volunteers have all searched the island for Holloway, to no avail.
The suspect was arrested Wednesday and was being questioned by Dutch police in the city of Utrecht at the request of Aruban authorities, Mr. Spong said Sunday on the Netherlands national television broadcaster, NOS. He has not been formally charged.
Mr. Spong’s secretary said a hearing was scheduled for today at a district court in The Hague, where Mr. Spong planned to argue that the Dutch government should not honor an Aruban request to bring him to the island.
Court officials in The Hague said that, due to the close political alliance between the Netherlands and its former colony, the procedure was formally a transfer, and not an extradition request.
A prosecutor in Aruba’s public prosecutor’s office, Karin Janssen, declined to comment.
Authorities have previously arrested eight people in connection with Holloway’s disappearance and then released them for lack of evidence.
Mr. Spong said his client is a friend of Joran van der Sloot – the last person known to have seen Holloway alive. Mr. van der Sloot says he left Holloway alone on a beach after the pair kissed.
The suspect was questioned three times in Aruba shortly after Holloway’s disappearance and twice by Dutch authorities, Mr. Spong said.
Holloway’s parents are attempting to sue Mr. van der Sloot, 18, in a New York court. Their suit alleges he imprisoned and sexually assaulted Holloway, and caused her disappearance.
