Van der Sloot returns to court to face murder charge

CNN) -- Joran van der Sloot returns to a Peruvian courtroom on Wednesday, where he is expected to plead guilty to killing a young woman, his lawyer told CNN.
The 24-year-old Dutch national indicated on Friday that he was willing to make a "confession" in the 2010 killing of Stephany Flores, but that he did "not agree with the aggravating factors" as defined in the murder charge levied against him.
Given this statement, the panel of three judges decided to give van der Sloot until Wednesday to make a final decision. There is no jury.
This was the latest twist in a case that has made international headlines, in part because of the circumstances of the killing but also because van der Sloot was arrested twice, but never charged, in the 2005 disappearance of U.S. teenager Natalee Holloway.
Police say van der Sloot killed Flores in his Lima hotel room in May 2010, then took money and bank cards from her wallet and fled to Chile, where he was arrested a few days later.
His lawyer, Jose Luis Jimenez, said he expects van der Sloot to enter a guilty plea known as an "anticipated conclusion of the process." This means that he would admit guilt and accept all the charges made against him by the prosecution.
The hope is that this strategy will result in a substantial reduction in the 30-year prison sentence he faces, Jimenez said.

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He is charged with "qualified murder" and simple robbery in the killing of 21-year-old Flores.
If he pleads not guilty, then the trial will resume before the all-female judicial panel. If he pleads guilty, the sentencing phase would begin.
On Friday, prosecutors went over all the evidence and witnesses they had and gave a summation of the case against van der Sloot.
During the hearing, a judge criticized van der Sloot for yawning, slouching and showing disrespect to the court.
What people don't know is that he had been transferred to the courthouse at six in the morning and kept in a hot holding cell for four hours, wearing a bulletproof vest and jacket the whole time, Jimenez said. He hadn't slept well because he was nervous about the process and was handcuffed the entire time, he said.
The lawyer asked the court to handle van der Sloot's arrival differently Wednesday, but there were no assurances of that, he said.
The case of Holloway, who vanished in 2005 while on a graduation trip to the Caribbean island of Aruba, is part of the Peru case as well. Holloway was last seen leaving a nightclub with van der Sloot and two other men. Van der Sloot was arrested twice but never charged in Holloway's disappearance, which is still unsolved.
Jimenez pointed out last week that the fatal attack on Flores occurred exactly five years after the Alabama teenager went missing. It has been widely reported that van der Sloot killed the woman after he believed she saw something on the Internet relating to Holloway.
"He is a young man ... who has practically lived persecuted for a crime he says he did not commit ... or for a disappearance that he cannot explain," the lawyer said. "Movies and books have been made ... At that age, and with other characteristics of his psychological profile ... in that moment, he felt threatened and reacted in a brutal manner."
The victim's family, including her father, Ricardo Flores, had pushed for stiffer charges and said that van der Sloot hasn't looked "remorseful" in court appearances.
"He had an indifferent and prideful attitude. He looks as if he has everything under control. He looks better than when he appeared on TV after he was arrested," Ricardo Flores told CNN last year.
Besides the Flores murder trial, van der Sloot also faces possible extradition to the United States. In June 2010, a federal grand jury in Alabama indicted him on charges of wire fraud and extortion after allegations surfaced that he tried to extort $250,000 from Holloway's mother, Beth.
He was allegedly given a total of $25,000, and authorities believe he used that money to travel to Peru and participate in a poker tournament, where he met Flores.

Van der Sloot postpones plea

Joran van der Sloot on Friday asked for more time to "reflect" on what plea he will make during his murder trial, shortly after his attorney indicating the 24-year-old Dutch man suddenly had changed his strategy in relation to the killing.
Earlier in the day, his attorney said van der Sloot was expected to plead guilty to all charges, but when it came time to tell the court, he asked instead for more time.
When asked for a plea by the magistrates, van der Sloot said he wanted to give a "sincere confession" -- a type of guilty plea that can qualify him for a reduced sentence -- but did not agree with all of the charges against him. When the judge
The trial is postponed until Wednesday, when van der Sloot is expected to finally give his plea. He is charged with "qualified murder" and simple robbery in the killing of 21-year-old Stephany Flores.
On Friday, prosecutors went over all the evidence and witnesses they had and gave a summation of the case against van der Sloot.
The Dutch national was considered the prime suspect in the case of Alabama teenager Natalee Holloway, who vanished in 2005 while on a graduation trip to the Caribbean island of Aruba. She was last seen leaving a nightclub with van der Sloot and two other men. Van der Sloot was arrested twice but never charged in connection with Holloway's disappearance, which is still unsolved.
He now stands accused of killing Flores in his Lima hotel room in May 2010. Police say he took money and bank cards from her wallet and fled to Chile, where he was arrested a few days later.
Van der Sloot faces a sentence of up to 30 years in prison. Flores' family later tried -- unsuccessfully -- to convince three judges from the superior court of Lima to impose an even more serious slate of charges that could have included a life sentence.
The victim's family, including her father, Ricardo Flores, had pushed for stiffer charges and said that van der Sloot hasn't looked "remorseful" in court appearances.
"He had an indifferent and prideful attitude. He looks as if he has everything under control. He looks better than when he appeared on TV after he was arrested," Ricardo Flores told CNN last year.
Three judges are presiding over van der Sloot's trial, and there is no jury.
Besides the Flores murder trial, van der Sloot also faces extradition to the United States. In June 2010, a federal grand jury in Alabama indicted him on charges of wire fraud and extortion after allegations surfaced that he tried to extort $250,000 from Holloway's mother. He was given a total of $25,000, and authorities believe he used that money to travel to Peru and participate in a poker tournament, where he met Flores.
Holloway's father told HLN's "Nancy Grace" show on Friday night that he felt van der Sloot appeared intent on trying to "cause ... issues and problems" during his court appearance. The father said he that believed the Dutch national seemed to be trying to manipulate the Peruvian system, saying he felt he'd done the same in court appearances in Aruba surrounding his daughter's disappearance.
"He's done this many times before," Dave Holloway said. "I think this was all planned outasked for clarification, he said he needed more time to decide his plea.

Van Der Sloot Trial Under Way In Peru

By the CNN Wire Staff

Posted: 12:23 am EST January 6, 2012Updated: 10:58 am EST January 6, 2012

(CNN) -- In a last-minute defense strategy change, Joran van der Sloot is expected to plead guilty to all the charges against him in connection with the killing of a Peruvian woman, his lawyer told CNN Friday.
The original plan going into the trial, which began Friday in Lima, Peru, was to admit to killing 21-year-old Stephany Flores, but to fight more stringent charges that could land him more time in prison, attorney Luis Jimenez said.
Jimenez said the intention of the new strategy is to give a "sincere confession," which under Peruvian law can qualify him for a more lenient sentence.
If van der Sloot goes forward with this approach, he could be sentenced as early as next week.
The trial got under way Friday with the prosecutor going over for the court the witnesses and evidence collected against van der Sloot.
The Dutch national was considered the prime suspect in the case of Alabama teenager Natalee Holloway, who vanished in 2005 while on a graduation trip to the Caribbean island of Aruba. She was last seen leaving a nightclub with van der Sloot and two other men. Van der Sloot was arrested twice but never charged in connection with Holloway's disappearance, which is still unsolved.
He now stands accused of killing Flores in his Lima hotel room in May 2010. Police say he took money and bank cards from her wallet and fled to Chile, where he was arrested a few days later.
Van der Sloot was charged last September with "qualified murder" and simple robbery, which together could carry a sentence of up to 30 years in prison. Flores' family later tried -- unsuccessfully -- to convince three judges from the superior court of Lima to impose an even more serious slate of charges that could have included a life sentence.
The victim's family, including her father Ricardo Flores, had pushed for stiffer charges and claimed that van der Sloot hasn't looked "remorseful" in court appearances.
"He had an indifferent and prideful attitude. He looks as if he has everything under control. He looks better than when he appeared on TV after he was arrested," Ricardo Flores told CNN last year.
Three judges are presiding over van der Sloot's trial, and there is no jury.
Besides the Flores murder trial, van der Sloot also faces extradition charges to the United States. In June 2010, a federal grand jury in Alabama indicted him on charges of wire fraud and extortion after allegations surfaced that he tried to extort $250,000 from Holloway's mother. He was given a total of $25,000, and authorities believe he used that money to travel to Peru and participate in a poker tournament, where he met Flores.
InSession's Jean Casarez and Mayra Cuevas contributed to this report.

Joran van der Sloot charged in Natalee Holloway extortion plot on day he's arrested for Peru murder

On the same day police nabbed Joran Van der Sloot in the murder of a 21-year-old Peruvian woman, the Dutch man was hit with extortion charges in connection with high-profile crime that first put his name in headlines - the disappearance of American teen Natalee Holloway.
The criminal complaint filed in federal court in Birmingham, Ala., Thursday accused Van der Sloot of promising to divulge the location of Holloway's body in return for $250,000 last month, the Associated Press reported.
The target of the alleged extortion plot was not named, but Holloway's family hails from Mountain Brook, Ala.
Van der Sloot, 22, was caught by Chilean police Thursday in a Santiago neighborhood, ending an international manhunt for the suspect in the murder of Stephany Flores.
The daughter of a famous Peruvian racecar driver, Flores was killed in a Lima, Peru hotel room May 30 – five years to the day after Holloway disappeared in Aruba in 2005 while on a trip to celebrate her high school graduation.
Both women were last seen alive with Van der Sloot.
Holloway, then 18, met Van der Sloot at a nightclub.
Her body was never recovered, and Van der Sloot was never charged in the disappearance, despite being taken into custody twice during the investigation and confessing to her murder.
Van der Sloot slipped out of Peru to Chile Monday before Flores' battered body was discovered in the hotel room two days later.
Beth Twitty, Holloway's mother, released a statement Thursday stating that she "extends her deepest sympathy to the family of Stephany Flores Ramirez and prays for swift and sure justice."

Joran Van der Sloot ate breakfast, drank coffee as he mulled fate of Stephany Flores' body: report

The chilling details of Joran Van der Sloot's alleged confession paint the picture of a cold-blooded killer.
The young Dutchman reportedly told Peruvian investigators he sat and sipped an espresso in his hotel room while the dead body of Stephany Flores lay sprawled on the floor, according to La Republica.
"I was going to use one of the traveling bags to take the body out of the hotel," Van der Sloot told police, the Spanish-language paper reports. "I didn't because I was afraid to be confronted because I was leaving without paying."
The 22-year-old ate several biscuits and reportedly took several amphetamine pills as he considered what to do with his alleged victim.
Fearing he would be caught, the paper reports, Van der Sloot showered, got dressed - leaving his clothes from the night before on the bed - and fled at 8:45 a.m. on May 30, less than three hours after he'd arrived at the hotel with Flores.
Authorities believe Van der Sloot had possibly thought to get rid of the body in the ocean, based on maps charting currents found in his backpack when he was arrested in Chile.
The body of 21-year-old Flores was found in Van der Sloot's room at Hotel Tac last week. The Dutch citizen was arrested days later in Chile, after fleeing Peru.
According to earlier reports, Van der Sloot allegedly killed Flores after she used his laptop and learned of his involvement in the Natalee Halloway disappearance in 2005. He is widely suspected of murdering the young Alabama high school student.

Joran Van Der Sloot, suspect in Natalee Holloway’s disappearance, to begin murder trial

Joran van der Sloot, a Dutch citizen widely suspected in the disappearance of American teen Natalee Holloway, will begin his trial for murder on Friday in Peru.
Van Der Sloot, 24, is charged with “qualified murder” in the death of Stephany Flores, a 21-year-old Peruvian woman in his Lima hotel room in 2010.
The trial comes nearly seven years after Van der Sloot made international headlines as the main suspect in the Alabama teen's disappearance. Since then, he has described himself as a pathological liar in interviews and often contacts Holloway's family, baiting them with knowledge of their missing daughter. Most recently, American officials say he extorted $25,000 from Holloway's mother offering her to lead her to her daughter's body in Aruba.
There is no evidence that he followed through on that promise.
Authorities say that Van Der Sloot confessed to killing Flores, the Peruvian woman, after he saw her looking at stories about Holloway on his computer in his hotel room. Her family's lawyers, who are allowed to participate in the trial under Peruvian law, also believe that he killed her to steal money from Flores that she won at the casino where they met.
Van der Sloot's lawyers told the Associated Press that his confession was made without an attorney or proper translator present and will argue that he was in a state of distress when he killed Flores, and hope to reduce the charges to from first degree-murder to simple homicide.
"He is a young man ... who has practically lived persecuted for a crime he says he did not commit ... or for a disappearance that he cannot explain," his lawyer told CNN. "Movies and books have been made ... At that age, and with other characteristics of his psychological profile, ... in that moment, he felt threatened and reacted in a brutal manner."
If Van der Sloot’s lawyers are successful, he would face between eight and 20 years in prison, the AP reported. If he is convicted of first degree murder, he could face life.
His lawyers told the AP that their client is doing well in prison, reading self-help books and doing crafts.
"His mood is super good," his lawyer, Jose Luis Jimenez said.
Twitty, Holloway's mother, had no comment on the case when the Associated Press reached her by phone

• 
  AP
  Joran Van der Sloot

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 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 had 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. law enforcement officials say he 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.

The defense will argue that Van der Sloot killed Flores in a state of emotional distress.

"We will challenge the aggravating factors (charged by the prosecution) and seek to reduce the charge from first-degree murder to simple homicide," Jimenez said. That charge carries a prison sentence of from eight to 20 years.

He 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 the woman 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 in his confession 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 later, 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.