Source: SignonSandiego.com
Date: May 22, 2006
 
By Toby Sterling
 

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands – A Dutch national detained on suspicion of participating in the kidnapping and killing of Natalee Holloway in Aruba is fighting a request to bring him to the island, his attorney's office said.

Gerard Spong said his client, a croupier at the casino in the hotel where Holloway was staying, was suspected of “assisting in the murder” of the Alabama high school senior.

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Holloway was 18 when she disappeared in May 2005 during a graduation trip to the Dutch Caribbean island of Aruba with classmates. She was last seen leaving a bar with three young men on May 30.

Dutch marines, the Aruban Coast Guard, the FBI and hundreds of volunteers have searched the island and coastal areas of Aruba for Holloway, to no avail.

The suspect was arrested Wednesday and was being questioned by Dutch police in the city of Utrecht at the request of Aruban authorities, Spong said Sunday on the Netherlands national television broadcaster, NOS.

He has not been formally charged. The questioning was to continue Monday, he said.

Spong's secretary said a hearing was scheduled for Tuesday at a district court in The Hague, where Spong planned to argue that the Dutch government should not honor an Aruban request to bring him to the island.

Court officials in The Hague said that, due to the close political alliance between the Netherlands and its former colony, the procedure was formally a transfer, and not an extradition request.

Karin Janssen, a prosecutor in Aruba's public prosecutor's office, declined to comment.

Authorities have previously arrested eight people in connection with Holloway's disappearance and then released them for lack of evidence.

Spong said his client is a friend of Joran van der Sloot – the last person known to have seen Holloway alive. Van der Sloot says he left Holloway alone on a beach after the pair kissed.

The suspect was questioned three times in Aruba shortly after Holloway's disappearance and twice by Dutch authorities, Spong said.

Utrecht police spokeswoman Danielle Friedman said Dutch officials will not comment on the investigation, which is being carried out under the authority of Aruban prosecutors.

Holloway's parents are attempting to sue van der Sloot, 18, in a New York court. Their suit alleges he imprisoned and sexually assaulted Holloway, and caused her disappearance.