Joran van der Sloot, the prime suspect in the 2005 disappearance of American teenager Natalee Holloway, has been severely beaten in the Challapalca Prison in Peru, where he is being held ahead of his extradition to the United States next month.
Van der Sloot's lawyer, Maximo Altez, confirmed the incident and stated that he does not believe the beating was related to his upcoming extradition. However, he suspects it may have happened due to gang rules inside the prison. Altez added that his client is being held in the medical area of the prison and that he plans to request the Peruvian Justice Ministry to transfer him to another facility as soon as possible.
Van der Sloot, a 35-year-old Dutch citizen, will be extradited to the U.S. in early June to face fraud charges linked to Holloway's disappearance. The teenager went missing in 2005 during a senior class trip to Aruba. She was last seen leaving a bar in the Caribbean nation with van der Sloot, who was identified as a suspect in her disappearance but never charged. She was 18 at the time of her vanishing.
Five years after Holloway's disappearance, van der Sloot met with her mother's lawyer in Aruba and claimed that his father had buried her under a house, only to retract his story in an alleged plot to extort money from her grieving family. Newly released court documents reveal how van der Sloot offered to share what happened to Holloway with her mother's lawyer in exchange for $250,000.
The agreement, which Holloway, van der Sloot, and the lawyer signed, was eventually modified so that van der Sloot promised to disclose the location of Natalee's body for an initial payment of $25,000, the document states. The contract stipulated that van der Sloot would receive an additional $225,000 once Holloway's remains were positively identified.
The deal quickly fell apart when the contractor who worked on the home where van der Sloot claimed Holloway was buried said the property was not under construction at the time of her disappearance. In an email, van der Sloot admitted he had made up the entire story. Days later, on the fifth anniversary of Holloway's disappearance, van der Sloot strangled Stephany Flores, 21, at a casino in Lima, Peru. He was sentenced to 28 years behind bars and has been held in a Peru prison ever since.
Despite his murder conviction, van der Sloot continues to receive positive attention from his "fans," according to his attorney. Altez revealed that "all his fans from all over the world sent letters to Joran. I rented him a P.O. Box to receive them. Some letters brought 10 euros, 20 euros, 5 dollars. They were girls who wrote and sent him letters with money, and he answered them all." Van der Sloot receives up to $400 monthly from his "fans," according to his attorney.
Van der Sloot famously got married and fathered a child while incarcerated, but he is now divorcing his wife for a "prettier and younger" girlfriend, Altez said. Despite his notoriety, no one has been charged with Holloway's disappearance, and she was legally declared dead in 2012.
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