Joran van der Sloot Faces Extradition to Alabama in Natalee Holloway Case

By Brendan Giusti, Christian Post Reporter Thursday, January 12, 2012

Joran van der Sloot’s guilty plea on Wednesday did not completely resolve his legal issues.

Van der Sloot admitted to a Peruvian court on Wednesday to killing 21-year-old Stephany Flores in his hotel room in Peru in 2010. He is slated to be sentenced on Friday.

He is also linked to the 2005 disappearance of Alabama teen Natalee Holloway.

Holloway disappeared in Aruba while on a high school graduation trip with her Alabama classmates.

Van der Sloot, who grew up in Aruba, could now face extradition to the U.S., according to reports. The possible extradition stems from extortion charges he faces in Alabama.

A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Birmingham told MSNBC they are ready to try him and are looking into extradition. The central question remains whether van der Sloot will have to serve his Peruvian sentence first.

Van der Sloot’s defense attorneys argued that he killed Flores after suffering "extreme psychological trauma" from the ongoing Holloway drama.

Van der Sloot confessed to killing Flores after she allegedly found incriminating evidence on his laptop, which linked him to Holloway’s disappearance. His lawyers argued for a lighter sentence because of van der Sloot’s alleged post-traumatic stress syndrome.

The portrayal of van der Sloot as a victim outraged Holloway’s family, which requested an Alabama court officially declare her dead on Thursday.

Holloway’s mother, Beth, still feels “immeasurable” pain, according to the family’s lawyer John Q. Kelly.

“It’s just outrageous and unfathomable that he’s using his torment of the Holloway family, his refusal to cooperate and his extortion and fraudulent behavior as a reason why he deserves sympathy,” Kelly told The New York Daily News.

Van der Sloot took $25,000 from the Holloways in 2010 under the premise that he would direct investigators in Aruba to Natalee’s remains.

“He just defrauded Beth Holloway out of $25,000, and he claims that left him so rattled he had to go kill someone?” Kelly said. “He’s trying to mitigate murder by being all upset about the other crimes he committed.”