Joran van der Sloot, the prime suspect in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway, admitted that he was scared of prosecution and confessed to disposing the American teen’s body in the marshy waters of the Caribbean off the island of Aruba, a Dutch tabloid newspaper reported this morning.
According to De Telegraaf, van der Sloot made these statements during an interview with RTL 5, a German television station. A full interview is expected to air this Sunday on the network.
This alleged confession comes almost two years after undercover tapes were released by Dutch crime reporter Peter R. de Vries, in which van der Sloot appears to admit he was present when Holloway died and that he helped dump her body in the ocean. De Vries, who sat down for an exclusive interview with ABC News’ Chris Cuomo back in 2008 after the tapes went public, says he is “totally convinced Joran is telling the truth” on the tape.
“Joran is telling the truth about what happened to Natalee,” De Vries told Cuomo, adding that “she died in his arms on the beach that night.”
The chief prosecutor in the Holloway case, Peter Blanken, told ‘De Telegraaf’ that the so-called confession in 2008 resulted in a new investigation into the disappearance of Holloway, but eventually concluded without results. “It became clear that this statement is held together by lies and fantasy,” Blanken said. “Times are wrong and named witnesses have denied.”
Blanken said he finds van der Sloot’s new alleged admission in the RTL-5 interview also not credible. According to CNN, Blanken said he tried to verify van der Sloots claims and ultimately that they ” couldn’t be true.” Blanken added that, “We talked with several witnesses and reviewed several facts. The story is unbelievable and not true, in my opinion.”
De Telegraaf reports that Van der Sloot is expected to conduct another interview this week in Frankfurt, Germany.
Holloway went missing back in May 2005 during a high school graduation trip to Aruba. Her disappearance received international attention.
The Man Who Lured Van der Sloot to Talk
In the ABC interview in 2008 Patrick van der Eem, described in detail how he painstakingly gained the young Dutch suspect’s trust, took his suspicions to Holland’s leading investigative reporter and began a sting operation that led to van der Sloot’s caught-on-camera admissions.
“I am telling you honestly, I know what happened to that girl,” van der Sloot told Van der Eem, on the undercover video. He goes on to say that Holloway died in his arms and that he called a friend to dispose of her body.
On the tape, van der Sloot further describes to van der Eem that Holloway suffered a seizure during a romantic encounter between the pair, who had met hours before at a local nightclub.
At another point, he told van der Eem, “I tried to shake her, and I was shaking the b****. I was like, ‘What is wrong with you man?’ I almost wanted to cry.”
Van der Sloot said he feels lucky the police were not able to recover Holloway’s body. “I think I am incredibly lucky that she’s never been found because if she had been found I would be in deep [excrement],” van der Sloot also said on the tape.
De Vries dismissed van der Sloot’s claim that he was lying on the tape or that drugs affected his statement, saying “I don’t buy these allegations.”
Joran Talks
In an exclusive interview with ABC News’ Chris Cuomo in 2006, van der Sloot said he planned to have sex with Holloway when they left a bar together.
“We were planning on going to my house, because she said she wanted to go to my house,” he said. “My intention was to take her to the house to have sex with her.”
But the couple did not end up sleeping together, he told Cuomo. “I asked her if she wanted to have sex, and she was fine with it,” he said. “I didn’t have a condom with me though in my wallet, and I won’t have sex with a girl without a condom.”
Holloway, who was visiting Aruba on a school trip, met van der Sloot at a casino the night she disappeared. How they met and what went on between them has been the focus of endless speculation by officials and Holloway’s friends and family.
“I sat down there and within five minutes, there was a group of girls from the Mountain Brook school that came up to me and sat down next to me and they wanted to play as well,” van der Sloot told Cuomo. “They’d already been drinking that day and had drinks with them. We played blackjack for a while, and I told them whether or not to hit.”
‘I Didn’t Want Anyone to Know’
Van der Sloot admitted in the 2006 interview that he had a reputation in Aruba as a ladies’ man, but he said he has been portrayed “unfairly” as a “murderer and a rapist and everything I’m not.”
“In Aruba that was part of my lifestyle … going out, being single and picking up girls,” he said. “Going out with them, having a good time and then saying goodbye.” Soon after admittedly lying to police about having dropped Holloway off at her hotel, van der Sloot became the main suspect in the case.
Van der Sloot — along with Deepak Kalpoe and Satish Kalpoe — were arrested June 9, 2005 on suspicion of involvement in Holloway’s disappearance. Van der Sloot admitted that he was with her but denied any wrongdoing at the time. All were released after a court ruled that there wasn’t enough evidence to hold them. Van der Sloot said he didn’t want to tell the truth because he was scared.
“I didn’t want anyone to know,” he told Cuomo. “I didn’t want anyone to know I left her at the beach.”
