Common Court confirms judge-commissioner’s decision as to Joran van der Sloot’s freedom
DIARIO Aruba
02/16/2008

ORANJESTAD (AAN): In what relates to the appeal by the Public Ministry against the denial of the judge-commissioner on February 1st, 2008 to detain the suspect, Joran van der Sloot in the Natalee Holloway case, the Common Court of Justice of the Dutch Antilles and Aruba arrived to a decision on February 14, 2008 at 5:30 in the afternoon.

The Common Court confirmed the judge-commissioner’s decision. To arrive at its decision, the Common Court considered that after taking note of the video and audio materials and also of the partial transcript of these materials, there is currently, in the opinion of the Common Court, insufficient facts and circumstances from which serious objections against Joran van der Sloot for the acts he is being accused of.

The Common Court has as a starting point that given the time that has passed and the fact that Joran van der Sloot has already been detained a few times, the question is if serious objections can be said to be the basis to actually place a person under preventive detention again, and the answer is not easily answered in a positive manner.

Although Joran van der Sloot in various conversations with Patrick van der Eem made extensive and detailed declarations in what regards to what happened on the night of the disappearance of Natalee Holloway, the Common Court considered various arguments to not take serious objections solely on the basis of these declarations.

In so doing, the Common Court considered that Joran van der Sloot gave different contradictory declarations once again, which has resulted in various times that the declarations cannot be confirmed by objective facts.

Currently, the parts of the recorded conversations that contain new elements, are not confirmed by objective facts. Considering as well the possible presence of a serious personality problem in the suspect, in combination with the fact that he spoke of things – as he himself said – that do not fit with the truth, The Common Court has sufficient reason to doubt the incriminating character of the declarations.

There is no other legal option open to the Public Ministry to appeal the Common Court’s decision. The decision has as a consequence that the Public Ministry cannot detain Joran van der Sloot at this time. The investigation of the Holloway case continues, and Joran van der Sloot remains a suspect.

After concluding the investigation, the Public Ministry will take a decision as to the prosecution of Joran van der Sloot.

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