Natalee Holloway: Jailed Suspect Complains of Conditions
Life is hard.
So is life behind bars, apparently. At least for one of the suspects in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway.
He’s not happy with the conditions in the jail he’s housed in.
Joran van der Sloot, a suspect in the disappearance of Alabama teenager Natalee Holloway, is complaining about his treatment in jail.
“He’s making a request to lift restrictions to allow family visits and access to newspapers, magazines, TV, even a Bible,” prosecutor spokesman John Pauley told CNN on Tuesday.
Van der Sloot, jailed on a rural part of the island, is allowed to meet only with his lawyers and police investigators.
He and brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpoe are being held on suspicion of manslaughter in the presumed death of Holloway, who disappeared on the island in May 2005.
The re-arrest of the suspects was the latest twist in the case. The order of events: the disappearance of Holloway, an island-wide search, questioning the suspects, arrest, release, long wait, re-arrest.
The three men maintain they are innocent and say they have no idea what happened to Holloway. She was last seen leaving a bar with them.
None of the three has been charged. A judge ruled they can be detained while a new team of Dutch and Aruban investigators decides whether to bring them to trial.
Chief Prosecutor Hans Mos has said he hopes to decide by the end of the year whether to bring the men to trial. This week, van der Sloot’s Aruban lawyer will ask the court to allow the college student’s American lawyer, Joe Tacopina, to visit his client during a planned trip next week to Aruba.
“It’s just so ridiculous, these restrictions, ” Tacopina said.
“These are tactics reminiscent of Nazi Germany,” he added. “How could reading a book or the Bible possibly affect their investigation?”
New evidence prompted prosecutors to act.
Tacopina said he doubts prosecutors have new evidence, as they have asserted, and called the rearrest of his client an act of desperation.
“I think they’re trying to isolate them to get them to break and then say, ‘Oh, they made some admissions,’ ” the lawyer said.
Last week, authorities picked up van der Sloot and the Kalpoe brothers based on undisclosed new evidence.
Van der Sloot was flown from the Netherlands, where he has been attending a university, to Aruba.
On Monday, a judge ordered that he be jailed until December 7 to give investigators more time to gather evidence and conduct interrogations.
The Kalpoe brothers are being held in separate jails until at least Thursday. Authorities will probably ask a judge to detain them another eight days, but must prove to the court they have enough evidence to justify their further detention.
advertisementAlso Monday, the Kalpoe brothers’ attorneys said that they have seen the so-called new evidence and that the videotaped 2005 interrogations and wiretaps contained nothing new. Attorney David Kock, who represents Satish Kalpoe, accused the prosecutors of harassing his client.
“They either want to do a last desperation attempt to solve this case or they want to buy some new time, because they see that the deadline is right in front of their door.
The family of Natalee Holloway awaits the disclosure of the evidence kept under wraps.
The suspects await their fate.
Source: CNN – “ Holloway case suspect complains about jail treatment”
by Mondoreb
Originally posted at:
DBKP@Blogger.
