Chief district attorney Hans Mos explains why the case against the three suspects in the Natalee Holloway-case was dropped.
Amigoe.com
12/22/2007
ORANJESTAD – A chat-session, computer disks, and two new testimonies were among others, the reason for the OM to detain Joran van der Sloot and the brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpoe in November, indicated chief district attorney Hans Mos yesterday in a press conference, where he explained the case that has been dropped.
With the newest digital technologies from the Netherlands, the investigation team this time recovered what was impossible earlier. On the hard drive of a confiscated computer was a chat-session, in which one of the suspects said that the missing teenager Natalee Holloway is dead. The OM didn’t say which of the suspects said that, but the information is substantial and especially ‘new’ evidence, and sufficient for the OM to arrest the three. Obtaining information from new technology is also considered new evidence, explained Mos. He compared it with a DNA-investigation that after years, can still give evidence.
The new investigation team with Dutch detectives could also use technologies to make a timeline of all the declarations. It appears that the last version of the three suspects on the day that Natalee disappeared is also not correct. Other new, indirect evidence are two testimonies. A woman told the team in June of 2005 that five hours after Natalee was seen alive for the last time, she received a telephone call from one of the three former suspects. From his voice she noticed that something was wrong. When she asked him what was wrong, he said that he doesn’t want to compromise her. “I cannot tell you what has happened over the phone”, was his answer.
In a declaration in November of 2006, a witness described the deviant behavior of one of the three one day after the disappearance of Holloway. That was also indirect evidence. The new evidence was for the judge too indirect and not enough to keep the three in custody. But Justice was confident that the three would start talking.
“Information they gave the media gives the impression that they had more things to say than they had told us until now”, said Mos, who said that the conversations the three former suspects had with Dutch journalists were also filed as evidence in the dossier.
With all this evidence that the OM obtained after the three were released at the end of summer in 2005, the judge give them permission to arrest the three. The OM was also in a hurry, due to the European treaty on the suspects’ rights to be tried within a reasonable period of time. The OM has set a deadline for December 31. Mos says that Van der Sloot and Deepak and Satish Kalpoe are still the three most important persons in the investigation, and possible new evidence will be investigated till the term of investigation is over. The police corps in Aruba keeps therefore four detectives available for new information and implication. Term of limitation for culpable homicide is six years and manslaughter is 12 years.
The case will be reopened if necessary. According to Aruban law, it is possible to close the criminal case without bringing it before the court. A definite acquittal can be avoided with this. The former suspects are also protected against ‘repeated troubling for the same facts based on the same evidence’. But the protection is less powerful than acquittal. After an acquittal by a judge in last instance, it won’t be possible to bring the same facts before the court again.
