Thaindian News

AMSTERDAM / LIMA (BNO NEWS) — Dutchman Joran van der Sloot, who is a suspect in the murder of a Peruvian woman and in the disappearance of American teenager Natalee Holloway, has confessed to Dutch journalists that he tried to extort money from Holloway’s parents.

“I wanted to take revenge at Natalee’s family,” Van der Sloot, 23, was quoted as saying by De Telegraaf newspaper on Monday. “Her parents have been making my life miserable for five years. When they offered to pay for the location of the girl’s body, I thought: why not? I regret that now.”

Van der Sloot, who is currently in the Miguel Castro Castro prison in Lima, said he expects to be in prison for a long time. “I expect I’ll be in prison in Peru for a long time,” he said.

Dutch journalist John van den Heuvel was able to interview Van der Sloot last week, and a brief clip from the interview was aired on Dutch television on early Monday. The complete interview is set to air on Monday night.

Van der Sloot said he was doing well ‘under the circumstances’ and said the treatment in the Castro Castro prison was good. “Usually everyone here in prison treats you very good and properly,” he told the reporter.

About contact with his own family, Van der Sloot said he calls his mother once a week. “I think she finds it really difficult,” he said. “I really regret that for my brothers and now again for my mother, that they are being bothered by me.” He said his brothers don’t want to talk to him.

Anita van der Sloot, Joran’s mother, was also interviewed by De Telegraaf. “If he murdered this girl, then has to happen what should happen. And I’m really not going to visit him in his cell. I don’t have any reason whatsoever to do that,” she said, when referring to Peruvian woman Stephany Tatiana Flores.

Van der Sloot further said he is teaching some of the prison guards English every few days. “There are a few guards who want to learn English. They come with their books and I help them with English for a few hours every three days.”

The Dutchman is a suspect in the disappearance of American teenager Natalee Holloway, who went missing on May 30, 2005 during a high school graduation trip to Aruba. The case received international media attention, but her body was never found.

Exactly 5 years later, on May 30 of this year, Van der Sloot took 21-year-old Peruvian woman Stephany Tatiana Flores to his hotel room in Lima. She was found dead there several days later, and Van der Sloot was eventually arrested in Chile and deported to Peru to face trial.

Van der Sloot later confessed to Peruvian police, saying Flores found out about his involvement in the disappearance of Holloway before he killed her. “She had no right. I approached her and she was scared,” Van der Sloot told police. “We discussed it and she tried to escape, and I took her neck and hit her.”

Van der Sloot, who has since tried to retract the confession, was charged with murder and robbery charges in the case of Flores, which could send him to prison for up to 35 years if convicted.

Besides that, U.S. prosecutors have issued an arrest warrant for Van der Sloot after he allegedly tried to extort $250,000 from Natalee Holloway’s mother in exchange for the location of Natalee’s remains and the circumstances surrounding her death.