‘Joran persona non grata’
Amigoe.com
02/08/2008

Justice-minister Rudy Croes does no longer want Joran van der Sloot on the island, because he has caused and is still causing a lot of damage to the image of Aruba.

ORANJESTAD – The minister of Justice, Rudy Croes has declared Joran van der Sloot, who is suspected of having murdered Natalee Holloway, persona non grata. Other than for judicial investigation, Joran van der Sloot is no longer welcome on the island.

The ministry of Justice also proposes this vote of censure in the light of a package of measures to tackle the criminality problems among Aruban and Antillean young persons in the Netherlands that is agreed on in the Dutch cabinet. The Dutch Justice-minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin is preparing a law that makes it possible to send them back to Aruba or the Antilles if necessary. “Let Joran be the first example of a Dutchman that is not wanted in Aruba”, said the minister, who also knows that judicially, it’s going to be difficult to really deny him admission to the country. “I simply do not want him here.”

Also Joran’s father, lawyer Paul van der Sloot seems to fall into disfavour with the Justice-minister. The justice-department does not rule out the fact that the lawyer has smuggled in a cellular phone for his son, when he was in prison. Joran mentioned that when the Dutch crime journalist Peter R. de Vries was secretly recording him. Justice is now investigating whether Van der Sloot must be dismissed as member of the special committee on the prison system. The same applies to his participation in the LAR-committee. Legislation Administration and Judicial Affairs is checking whether he can still be a lawyer. The president of the Bar, Ronald Wix indicated that there no reason for that yet. “If it turns out that what Joran said is true, we will take disciplinary measures. He indicated in a letter to the Dutch programme Pauw & Witteman that what Joran said it is not true.”

All eyes are now focused on the declaration that Joran van der Sloot wants to give to the police. According to his lawyers’ firm in the Netherlands, he hadn’t done that yet yesterday. On no account does the Public Prosecutor (OM) want to say where, when, or if there’s going to be an encounter. The ministry of Justice said that two detectives from Aruba had gone to the Netherlands for this. Also chief prosecutor Hans Mos is in the Netherlands, but supposedly on vacation.

Because the suspect has voluntarily committed to give a statement, the OM must passively wait a see whether Van der Sloot will come to the police station. Arresting him is impossible, as long as the examining magistrate in Oranjestad does not give permission for this. The OM had till this afternoon to submit the court of Justice with all relevant information and objections regarding the appeal against the decision that the examining magistrate made last week, not to arrest Joran. The court will decide on this next week.

Patrick van der Eem not welcome in the US due to his drugs past.

PATRICK

The interest for the Holloway-case remains the same in the United States. Peter R. de Vries, who left for the United States last Wednesday to appear in among others the Larry King show and Good Morning America, receives most of the attention. One of the first things that Larry King wanted to know from De Vries was whether he has questioned the reliability of informant Patrick van der Eem. He has a criminal record and he has drugged Joran van der Sloot to encourage him to confess, said King. “Smoking marihuana is Joran’s daily routine anyway”, answered De Vries, who didn’t think Van der Eem’s past is important.

But Justice in the US thought differently and arrested Van der Eem immediately after arrival at JFK-airport in New York. They put him on the very next plane to the Netherlands. Because of his criminal record, Van der Eem was not allowed to enter the US. The idea was that together with De Vries, he would also go on tour to all the big American TV-stations.

'Natalee was epileptic'

Also the family Holloway is receiving a lot of attention again from the media in the US. Natalee’s mother Beth Twitty is often seen in the company of Peter R. de Vries.

Also Natalee’s stepfather Jug Twitty got to speak. According to him, the police and justice in Aruba had covered up the true fact of Natalee’s disappearance. Joran’s declaration that Natalee had suddenly started to shake on the beach is according to him the indication that the authorities knew in 2005 already what had happened. “I now understand why, two weeks after her disappearance, the police asked us if Natalee was suffering of epileptic attacks”, he told the journalists. “Twitty had already mentioned on TV last year that Aruban detectives have asked him about Natalee’s epileptic or allergic reactions. It is not inconceivable that during the ‘spy confessions’, Joran has used Twitty’s statements to trace a wrong track.”