Father Of Natalee Holloway Suspect Dies

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Paul van der Sloot, the father of the main suspect in the Natalee Holloway disappearance case, has died on Aruba, Mr Van der Sloot's family has told Radio Netherlands Worldwide.


Joran van der Sloot's father collapsed on Wednesday evening while playing tennis at the Tierra del Sol estate on the Dutch Caribbean island. Emergency service staff were unable to resuscitate him. Paul van der Sloot was 57.

His son Joran is still suspected of involvement in the disappearance of American teenager Natalee Holloway on Aruba in May 2005. The case was brought back into the limelight when Dutch crime reporter Peter R. de Vries secretly filmed Joran van der Sloot claiming that he had dumped Natalee's body in the ocean. This potentially incriminating statement was not accepted as evidence by the court.

Denial

The suspect, who lives in the Netherlands, was interviewed by Aruban police in Rotterdam early in 2008 and declared persona non grata shortly afterwards, making it practically impossible for him to return to Aruba.

Joran's lawyer says that the TV admission was untrue; his client had only wanted to impress the man he was talking to, trying to gain some credibility in the crimininal world.

Later in 2008 the US TV channel Fox broadcast an interview with Joran van der Sloot. He told interviewer Greta van Susteren that he had sold Natalee Holloway to a Venezuelan on the beach for 10,000 dollars. The man was apparently looking for a blonde sex slave. In the interview, Mr Van der Sloot also claimed that his father Paul had bribed policemen on Aruba to the tune of 50,000 dollars. These statements, too, have not been taken into account by the legal authorities.

Trainee judge

Paul van der Sloot, a lawyer who was training as a judge on Aruba, was repeatedly interviewed by the media in connection to his son's alleged involvement in the case. It was never clear how much Mr Van der Sloot knew about Joran's role in the affair.