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17 February 2006
AMSTERDAM — The family of US teenager Natalee Holloway have filed a lawsuit against the Dutch teenager who was questioned extensively about her disappearance on Aruba in May.
Documents filed with the Supreme Court of the State of New York accuse Joran van der Sloot, 18, of “malicious, wanton and willful disregard of the rights, safety and well-being” of Natalee Holloway, CNN reported on Friday.
The complaint implicates Van der Sloot’s father, Paulus, who is a lawyer and trained judge on the autonomous Dutch island of Aruba. He is accused of “knowingly facilitated his own son’s predatory … behavior toward Natalee Holloway”.
Joran, his father and his mother, Anita, were all served with a court order on Thursday when they arrived in New York for an interview Joran was scheduled to give to broadcaster ABC.
A private detective hired by Holloway’s parents was monitoring their movement and arranged that they be served with the court documents on arrival in the US.
The Holloways have led a high-profile campaign, focused on the Van der Sloots, to discover what happened to their daughter. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages.
Investigators indicated in the weeks after her disappearance that Natalee was probably dead. Repeated searches of the Caribbean island failed to find any trace of her.
Joran van der Sloot was arrested along with his friends, Deepak Kalpoe and Satish Kalpoe, on 9 June, ten days after Natalee disappeared while on a holiday on the island with classmates to celebrate graduation.
The three men said initially they gave Natalee a lift home from a nightclub and dropped off Holloway at the Holiday Inn. Joran then admitted he had spent time alone with Natalee on a beach but he insisted that he did not harm her. He said he left her alone on the beach at her request.
The Kalpoe brothers were released from custody on 14 July, but were re-arrested in late August on suspicion of rape and murder. All three were later released.
Joran is represented by lawyer Antonio Carlo, who is also Paulus van der Sloot’s boss on Aruba.
Carlo indicated he was not happy about Joran’s trip to America for the ABC interview. “I’m on Aruba, you can draw your own conclusions,” he said.
Paulus van der Sloot joined Carlo’s legal firm as a lawyer in January this year.
[Copyright Expatica News + ANP 2006]
Subject: Dutch news