Joran van der Sloot goes on trial in the murder of a young Peruvian woman Friday

LIMA, Peru — Joran van der Sloot goes on trial in the murder of a young Peruvian woman Friday, nearly seven years after he became the prime suspect in the unsolved disappearance of an American teenager on holiday in Aruba.
Van der Sloot, 24, is charged with killing 21-year-old Stephany Flores in his Lima hotel room on May 30, 2010, after the two left a casino together in the day's wee hours.
The slaying happened five years to the day after the disappearance of Natalee Holloway, a 19-year-old from Alabama who was celebrating her high school graduation on the Dutch Caribbean island of Aruba and was seen leaving a nightclub with Van der Sloot. Her body has never been found.
Authorities say Van der Sloot confessed to killing Flores, claiming he became enraged after she discovered his connection to Holloway.
His attorney says the confession should be voided because the defense lawyer present when he made it was state-appointed and no official translator was present.
Police and Flores' family dispute Van der Sloot's version of her death that the defendant was hard up for cash and knew the Peruvian business student had been winning at the casino.
Prosecutors are seeking a 30-year prison sentence for Van der Sloot on murder and theft charges in a trial that will be held at Lima's Lurigancho prison. He is accused of murdering Flores with "ferocity and great cruelty," and prosecutors say he also stole 600 soles, about $220, from the victim.
The handsome, garrulous Dutchman, a staple of true-crime TV shows for years after Holloway's disappearance, has in several interviews described himself as a pathological liar. He's been in custody after his arrest in neighboring Chile just days after Flores' death.
Van der Sloot shares a cell with a Mexican and a Chinese inmate at the maximum security Miguel Castro Castro prison, separated from convicted prisoners, said his lawyer, Jose Luis Jimenez.

He said Van der Sloot spends his days making crafts and reading self-help books.
"His mood is super good," Jimenez said during a telephone interview Wednesday.
The defendant has granted several jailhouse interviews to media and was confronted there in September 2010 by Holloway's mother, Beth Holloway Twitty, when she accompanied a Dutch television crew. Her lawyer, John Q. Kelly, said at the time that she was determined to get answers about her daughter.
The Associated Press reached Twitty by telephone on Thursday and she said she no comment on the trial or whether she feels any closer to knowing her daughter's fate.
Van der Sloot has told several people he was involved in Holloway's disappearance, only to later deny it.
U.S. officials, who have indicted him on extortion and fraud charges, say Van der Sloot extorted $25,000 from Twitty after offering to lead Kelly to Holloway's body in Aruba, using the money to fly to Lima on May 14, 2010, just days after meeting with Kelly.
"I don't think he'll ever give the details of Natalee's disappearance," said Kelly, because "he gravitates toward the limelight and (maintaining the mystery is) his main method of gaining attention."
Van der Sloot's attorney, Jimenez will argue that his client was in a state of emotional distress when he killed Flores and "seek to reduce the charge from first-degree murder to simple homicide." The latter carries a prison sentence of from eight to 20 years.
Jimenez said his client, whose prominent lawyer father died of a heart attack on an Aruba tennis court in February 2010, was in a fragile state from years of being under suspicion for Holloway's presumed death and other legal problems stemming from that case.
"The killing was impromptu. There was no planning to carry it out," Jimenez said.
Lawyers for Flores' family, who are allowed to participate in the trial under Peruvian law, will try to show that Van der Sloot killed her to steal money she won at the casino.
If the court finds that to be true, a conviction could result in Van der Sloot being sentenced to life in prison.
"This guy wanted to take the money of the girl because he, in communications he had with his friends in Holland through Facebook and email, stated that he had no money, that he had no money or food, that his stay in Peru was hard and he told them: 'I am on the verge of prostitution,'" family lawyer Edward Alvarez said in an interview.
Alvarez predicted Van der Sloot would plead guilty Friday in an effort to get a reduced sentence.
Jimenez, the defense attorney, ruled out that possibility.
He said that would require his client to make a confession that accepted all the charges alleged by the prosecution.
The lawyer didn't dispute that Van der Sloot confessed to the killing, but he said the Dutchman's rudimentary Spanish didn't allow him to respond properly during his interrogation.
Van der Sloot met Flores, the daughter of a circus promoter and former race car driver, at the Atlantic Casino in Lima.
Video from casino cameras show the two playing at the same table, then leaving together.
In his confession, Van der Sloot said they planned to play Internet poker at the down-market TAC Hotel where he was staying. He said that while they were playing, his computer received an instant message on his links to the Holloway case. He said Flores then struck him, and he became enraged and strangled her.
Hotel video shows Van der Sloot entering the hotel with Flores then leaving alone a few hours later. Her body was found in the hotel room three days later.
Two days after that, the Dutchman was arrested in Chile.
That same day, he was charged in Alabama with trying to extort the Holloway family in return for disclosing the location of Natalee Holloway's body.

CNN: Van der Sloot to plead guilty today in Peru killing

1. 

   A shaman spits flowered water as he performs a ritual in front of posters of Stephany Flores, left, and Joran van der Sloot outside San Pedro prison where Van der Sloot's trial will start today in Lima, Peru.

   CAPTION

   By Karel Navarro, AP
   Joran van der Sloot, a central figure in the disappearance of American teenager Natalee Holloway, has changed his defense strategy and is expected to plead guilty today in Peru to all charges in the killing of a Peruvian woman, his lawyer tells CNN.

The 24-year-old Dutchman is charged with "qualified murder" and simple robbery, in the death of 21-year-old Stephany Flores in Lima. The charge carries a 30-year sentence.



Before the change of plans, Van der Sloot had intended to admit killing Flores in her hotel room in May 2010, but to fight harsher charges that could bring more time in prison, his attorney, Luis Jimenez tells CNN.

Jimenez says the new strategy is for Van der Sloot to give a "sincere confession," which under Peruvian law can qualify him for a more lenient sentence, CNN reports.

Three judges will preside over the non-jury trial that opens today in Lima.

Police say Van der Sloot took Flores' money and bank cards from her wallet and fled to Chile, where he was arrested a few days later.

Van der Sloot was linked, but never charged, in the disappearance of Holloway, who vanished in 2005 while on a high school graduation trip to Aruba. She was last seen leaving a nightclub with Van der Sloot, but he has maintained he had nothing to do with her disappearance.

In June 2010, Van der Sloot was charged in the U.S. attempting to extort a million dollars from the Holloway family by promising to say where Natalee's body was.

He used a $25,000 advance to pay for a flight to Lima, where his fatal meeting with Stephany Flores took place, Radio Netherlands reports.

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Murder suspect Joran van der Sloot files $10 million lawsuit against South American authorities–and murder victim’s father

Joran van der Sloot, the man still suspected of murdering disappeared American student Natalee Holloway in Aruba, has filed a lawsuit against authorities with the Chilean and Peruvian government as well as Richard Flores, the father of a second murder victim whom van der Sloot is suspected of slaying. Van der Sloot's suit, which seeks $10 million in damages, alleges that the defendants violated his human rights as he was investigated for the murder of Stephany Flores.

The 24-year-old van der Sloot is alleging that Chilean authorities violated his rights during his forcible extradition from Chile to Peru to face murder charges in the May 30 killing of Flores, a 21-year-old Peruvian business student, who was found dead in van der Sloot's hotel room in Lima on June 2, 2010.

Van der Sloot has been charged with first-degree murder and robbery in the Flores case after his prior indictment by the U.S. government on charges of attempting to extort $250,000 from Holloway's family in exchange for information on her death and the alleged location of her body.

The Huffington Post's David Lohr explains the charges in van der Sloot's lawsuit:


The lawsuit alleges there was "pressure from the then-President of the Republic Alan Garcia Perez" to have him extradited. The suit further argues that police in Chile denied van der Sloot access to a telephone or computer so he could communicate with his family and alleges he was "deprived of his right to counsel."


In addition to Perez, the lawsuit implicates former Peruvian Minister of Interior Octavio Salazar, former police generals Miguel Hidalgo and Cesar Guardia, and Ricardo Flores, the father of murder victim Stephany Flores.

Peruvian officials claim van der Sloot made a full confession to the murder of Flores, claiming he broke her neck after catching her using his computer to research his involvement in the Holloway murder case. Van der Sloot later retracted the confession, saying it was made under duress.


"I did not want to do it," van der Sloot allegedly said about the attack. "The girl intruded into my private life. ... We argued, and she tried to escape. I grabbed her by the neck, and I hit her."

A confidant of the van der Sloot family claimed yesterday that Joran was suffering from post traumatic stress at the time of Flores' murder.

The Peruvian government dismissed an earlier lawsuit from van der Sloot, who claimed he was arrested without a warrant and not given access to a translator while being pressured to confess to Flores' murder. "All this with the intention of pressuring me to accuse [me] of homicide," van der Sloot said in court documents.

Van der Sloot faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted, with his trial set to start just after the New Year on Jan. 6.

video of natalee parents in court

Natalee Holloway's mother opposes death declaration

By the CNN Wire Staff

updated 9:00 AM EST, Sat September 24, 2011

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Her attorney says Beth Holloway finds the petition "inexplicable"
• Beth Holloway "will always hope and pray for Natalee's safe return"
• The petition will be heard in an Alabama court on Friday

(CNN) -- Beth Holloway, the mother of long-missing Alabama teenager Natalee Holloway, opposes a court petition to declare the her dead, an attorney said Thursday.
The petition was filed in June by Dave Holloway, Beth Holloway's ex-husband. It will be heard in a Jefferson County, Alabama, probate court on Friday.
Natalee Holloway was 18 and had just graduated high school in the Birmingham, Alabama, suburb of Mountain Brook when she disappeared on a celebratory trip with classmates to Aruba in 2005.
"Beth intends to oppose Dave's inexplicable effort to have Natalee declared dead," attorney John Q. Kelly said in a statement. "Beth gave birth to and raised Natalee, and will always hope and pray for Natalee's safe return."

Natalee Holloway's parents in court

Last week, Dave Holloway's attorney said he filed the petition because he "is seeking closure for his family."
"This is a normal proceeding for families when a loved one has been missing for an extended period of time," attorney Karen Hennecy said in a statement. "Alabama law requires a waiting period of five years when a body has not recovered and no death certificate has been issued."
"If Dave seeks closure on such a personal and sensitive matter, it should be respected, but not imposed upon Beth in such an adversarial and public manner," Kelly said Thursday.
Beth Holloway said in a statement last week, issued through her Natalee Holloway Resource Center, which aids families of missing persons, that she learned about the filing when she was handed documents by a process server while addressing a conference in Georgia.
Natalee Holloway's disappearance remains unsolved. A suspect, Joran van der Sloot, was arrested but never charged in connection with the disappearance. He was indicted on federal extortion charges last year after prosecutors accused him of offering to sell information about the location of Holloway's remains in exchange for $250,000.
Van der Sloot is awaiting trial on murder charges in Peru in the death of a woman whose body was found in his hotel room last year. If convicted, prosecutors have said, he faces a 30-year prison term


 cnn.com

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