Joran van der Sloot lands in the United States after transfer in Peru

() — Joran van der Sloot, the main suspect in the 2005 disappearance of Natalee Holloway, landed in Alabama on Thursday to face fraud and extortion charges in the United States. FBI agents transferred Van der Sloot from Peru, which authorized a temporary transfer.

He is expected to appear in federal court in Birmingham, Alabama, this Friday at 12 p.m. Miami time, according to court records.

The FBI plane that transported Van der Sloot left Lima on Thursday morning, the head of Peru’s Interpol, Carlos López, confirmed to .

In a statement posted on social media Thursday morning, Peru’s National Penitentiary Institute (INPE) announced that Van der Sloot had been handed over to Peruvian Interpol at 6:05 a.m. local time (5:05 a.m. ET). Miami). The Dutch citizen underwent medical check-ups and a covid-19 test before leaving prison, added the pronouncement.

The transfer occurs after several legal battles over temporary transfer of Van der Slootwho is currently serving a 28-year prison sentence in Peru for the 2012 murder of 21-year-old Stephany Flores in her Lima hotel room.

A Van der Sloot lawyer argued on Monday that his transfer to the United States should be suspended, but the Lima Superior Court of Justice ordered that he be handed over to FBI agents on Thursday, previously reported.

Van der Sloot is accused in the US of extorting the mother of Natalee Holloway, the Alabama teenager who was last seen with the Dutch national and two other people 18 years ago in Aruba. In 2010, he was indicted on federal racketeering and wire fraud charges in connection with a plot to sell information about the whereabouts of Holloway’s remains for $250,000, according to documents filed with the Northern District of Alabama.

The missing girl’s mother, Beth Holloway, transferred $15,000 to a bank account Van der Sloot had in the Netherlands and, through a lawyer, gave her another $10,000 in person, according to the indictment. Once he had the initial $25,000, Van der Sloot showed the lawyer, John Kelly, where Natalee Holloway’s remains were supposedly hidden, but the information turned out to be false, the documents say.

Holloway’s remains have never been found and in 2012, an Alabama judge signed an order declaring her legally dead.

The disappearance of Natalee Holloway

Joran van der Sloot was one of the last people to see American Natalee Holloway alive in Aruba in 2005 before she disappeared.

“In May 2005, my 18-year-old daughter Natalee Holloway left Birmingham for Aruba for her high school graduation trip and was never seen again,” mother Beth Holloway said in a family statement issued beginnings of May.

Holloway was last seen in the early morning hours of May 30, 2005, leaving a nightclub in Aruba with van der Sloot and two other men. No one was charged in her disappearance, previously reported, and her body has never been found.

“I have been blessed to have Natalee in my life for 18 years, and as of this month, I have been without her for exactly 18 years,” the statement read. “I would now be 36 years old. It has been a very long and painful journey, but the persistence of many is going to pay off. Together, we are finally getting justice for Natalee.”

Van der Sloot, a citizen of the Netherlands, was indicted in the United States on federal racketeering and wire fraud charges. In 2012, he was convicted in Peru of the murder of 21-year-old Stephany Flores in her Lima hotel room, and sentenced to 28 years in prison.

‘s Claudia Rebaza, Adry Ortiz and Florencia Trucco contributed to this report.