Featured Image Credit: Police Handout
Topics: US News
Emily Brown
Joran van der Sloot, a suspect in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway, has agreed to share everything he knows about what happened to the teenager.
Van der Sloot made the agreement in front of a judge in Birmingham, Alabama, as part of a deal which involved him pleading guilty to extortion and wire fraud linked to Holloway's disappearance in 2005.
The suspect had previously pleaded not guilty to the same charges, and was asked today (18 October) a series of questions to determine whether he understood the legal ramifications of pleading guilty.
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US District Judge Anna Manasco judge also asked van der Sloot if he was agreeing to fully cooperate with authorities in the search for Holloway, and even submit to polygraph examinations.
In response to the judge's questions, van der Sloot repeatedly answered: "Yes ma'am."
"I therefore accept his plea of guilty and judge him to be guilty," Manasco said.
As well as agreeing to share everything he knew, van der Sloot apologized to Holloway's family and claimed he is a different person to the man he was almost two decades ago.
“I would like to apologize to the Holloway family," he said. "I am no longer that person back then than I am today. I gave my heart to Jesus Christ, he helped me through all of this."
The charges van der Sloot has now pleaded guilty to are only indirectly tied to Holloway’s disappearance, and come after a federal grand jury indicted him on two counts of wire fraud and extortion in 2010.
Before he was extradited to the US in June, van der Sloot he had been imprisoned in Peru for the murder of college student Stephany Flores, who died in van der Sloot's hotel room in Lima on 30 May, 2010.
Flores' death came after she allegedly looked at van der Sloot's laptop and found out he was connected to Holloway’s disappearance.
Holloway had been on vacation in Aruba with her classmates when she disappeared.
She was last seen at about 1:30am on 30 May, when she was seen leaving a nightclub with three men, who the FBI have identified as van der Sloot, Deepak Kalpoe, and Satish Kalpoe.
Seven years after her disappearance, a probate judge declared Holloway dead.
If a party admitted guilt in Holloway's death today, it could not lead to any local prosecution due to the 12 year statute of limitations for homicide in Aruba.