MEXICO CITY - Peru's government issued an executive order Wednesday allowing the temporary extradition to the United States of the prime suspect in the unsolved 2005 disappearance of American student Natalee Holloway on the Dutch Caribbean island of Aruba.The Peruvian Embassy in Washington told The Associated Press the order allows for the extradition of Dutchman Joran van der Sloot to be prosecuted for alleged extortion and wire fraud, charges stemming from the Holloway case.Holloway’s body was never found, and no charges were filed against Van der Sloot in the case.
A judge later declared Holloway dead.FILE - File picture dated Jan. 6, 2012 of Dutch national Joran Van der Sloot during his preliminary hearing in court in the Lurigancho prison in Lima. (ERNESTO BENAVIDES/AFP/GettyImages)Prosecutors in the U.S.
allege Van der Sloot accepted $25,000 in cash from Holloway’s family in exchange for a promise to lead them to her body in early 2010, just before he went to Peru.
Holloway was from Mountain Brook, Alabama.Van der Sloot is serving 28 years in prison in Peru for being convicted of murdering 21-year-old Peruvian student Stephany Flores after meeting her in a Lima casino in 2010.The slaying occurred five years to the day after Holloway disappeared during a high school graduation trip to Aruba, where Van der Sloot lived.