Peru murder suspect indicted in the U.S.A. for extortion

Offered information for sale to mother

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama - Dutchman Joran van der Sloot, whose late father was a judge in training in Aruba, has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Alabama on charges he attempted to extort $250,000 from the mother of a teenager who disappeared during a trip to Aruba in 2005.

U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance said Van der Sloot was indicted recently in Birmingham on charges of wire fraud and extortion for soliciting money from Beth Holloway in exchange for information on where her daughter, Natalee Holloway, was buried.

Van der Sloot has been a suspect since Natalee Holloway, 18 at the time, disappeared while on a graduation trip to Aruba in 2005.

Van der Sloot is in prison in Peru, charged with murder in the May 30 death of a 21-year-old Lima student he met while playing poker in a casino.

According to Dutch reporters who interviewed him in the Peruvian prison, Van der Sloot is receiving special privileges in the country’s otherwise notorious jail system.