Rachel Decker
The Paw Print
Twenty four-year-old Joran van der Sloot, the man that is still the primary suspect in the murders of Natalee Holloway, is now filing a $10 million lawsuit against authorities with the Chilean and Peruvian government, as well as Richard Flores, the father of a second murder victim whom van der Sloot is suspected of slaying.
Van der Sloot’s suit alleges that the defendants violated his human rights while he was being investigated for the murder of Stephany Flores, the second murder victim.
He is claiming that Chilean authorities violated his rights when he was being forcibly extradited from Chili to Peru to face the murder charges set against him for the May 30 killing of Flores, a 21-year-old Peruvian business student who was discovered dead in van der Sloot’s hotel room in Lima on June 2, 2010.
Van der Sloot has been charged with first-degree murder, as well as robbery, in the Flores case. Van der Sloot is being charged with robbery for attempting to extort $250,000 from Holloway’s family in exchange for information on Natalee Holloway’s death and the alleged location of her body.
David Lohr, a writer for the Huffington Post, explains the charges in van der Sloot’s lawsuit:
“The lawsuit alleges there was ‘pressure from the then-President of the Republic Alan Garcia Perez’ to have him extradited. The suit further argues that police in Chile denied van der Sloot access to a telephone or computer so he could communicate with his family and alleges he was ‘deprived of his right to counsel.’
In addition to Perez, the lawsuit implicates former Peruvian Minister of Interior Octavio
Courtesy Photo: Jordan van der Sloot
Salazar, former police generals Miguel Hidalgo and Cesar Guardia, and Ricardo Flores, the father of murder victim Stephany Flores.”
Peruvian officials have claimed that van der Sloot made a full confession to the murder of Flores, claiming he broke her neck after catching her using his computer to research his involvement in the Holloway murder case. Van der Sloot later retracted the confession, saying it was only made under duress from the authorities handling the case.
“I did not want to do it,” van der Sloot allegedly said about the attack. “The girl intruded into my private life… We argued, and she tried to escape. I grabbed her by the neck, and I hit her.”
One of the van der Sloot’s family confidants claimed yesterday that Jordan had been suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder around the time of Flores’ murder.
The Peruvian government has already dismissed an earlier lawsuit from van der Sloot where he claimed that he had been arrested without a warrant and had not been given access to a translator while being pressured to confess to Flores’ murder. “All this with the intention of pressuring me to accuse [me] of homicide,” van der Sloot claimed in court documents.
Van der Sloot will be face up to thirty years in prison if he is convicted. His trial is currently set to be held just after the New Year, on Jan. 6.
What’s Been Said…