He will have to serve his time before any extradition on U.S. charges related to his alleged extortion of Holloway’s mother, a Peruvian legal expert said. By FRANK BAJAK ADVERTISING Associated Press LIMA, Peru — Joran van der Sloot knew
By FRANK BAJAK
Associated Press
LIMA, Peru — Joran van der Sloot knew his guilty plea in the strangulation death of a young woman he met at a Lima casino was a big gamble as he tried to get a reduced sentence. On Friday, the poker-loving Dutchman lost.
A three-judge panel sentenced him to 28 years in prison, discarding his claims of contrition in a killing his lawyer said was triggered by trauma from being the prime suspect in the unsolved 2005 disappearance of U.S. teen Natalee Holloway.
Asked if he accepted the sentence, van der Sloot, standing in a green T-shirt and faded jeans in a hot Lima courtroom, said he would appeal.
The sentencing marked the latest chapter in the tabloid-sustaining saga and came a day after a judge in Alabama declared Holloway legally dead as her parents try to bring van der Sloot, 24, to the U.S. for a related crime.
“I believe he is beyond rehabilitation,” Dave Holloway in Birmingham, Ala., after that hearing.
The Peruvian judges said Friday that due to time already served, van der Sloot’s sentence would end in June 2038.
He will have to serve his time before any extradition on U.S. charges related to his alleged extortion of Holloway’s mother, a Peruvian legal expert said.
