Prime Suspect in Natalee Holloway’s Disappearance Pleads Not Guilty to Charges

Joran van der Sloot, the prime suspect in the 2005 disappearance of Alabama teenager Natalee Holloway, pleaded not guilty on Friday to extortion and fraud charges in a Birmingham courtroom, CBS affiliate WIAT reports.

Van der Sloot, a Dutch national, was flown to Birmingham from Peru on Thursday where he is serving a 28-year sentence for the 2010 murder of 21-year-old Stephany Flores. He confessed to killing Flores, exactly five years after Holloway’s disappearance, in his hotel room in Lima. The daughter of the wealthy Peruvian businessman Ricardo Flores was found stabbed, lying in a pool of blood.

U.S. prosecutors say that more than a decade ago, van der Sloot reached attempted to extort $250,000 from Holloway’s mother, Beth Holloway, to disclose the location of the young woman’s body. A grand jury indicted him in 2010.

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