4 February 2008

AMSTERDAM - Dutch youth Joran van der Sloot admitted being personally involved in the disappearance of US teenager Natalee Holloway in Aruba in 2005, it was reported Sunday night.

The revelations came during a series of conversations secretly recorded for Dutch crime journalist Peter R de Vries, aired during a special two-hour broadcast.

In the video material, which was made in a car, Van der Sloot repeatedly gives detailed accounts of what happened on 30 May 2005, when he met Holloway.

The confessions are made to a "friend," who was in fact working for crime journalist De Vries.

According to Van der Sloot, who was 17 at the time, during the early part of the night, he and two friends partied with Holloway and her American friends in a local bar.

Van der Sloot says all girls were "blind drunk" already upon his arrival.

During his presence, Holloway drank more, he says. He himself gave her one drink that contained 75 percent alcohol, as well as a second drink, also with a high-alcohol percentage.

About two hours later, Van der Sloot requested his two friends, who owned a car, to drop him and Holloway off at the beach. He said he wanted to have sexual relations with her, and that she consented.

At the beach, Van der Sloot said he and Holloway made out. He said the girl's entire body began shake incessantly. Soon afterwards she appeared to be lifeless.

He said he tried to resuscitate the girl without success. Then he hid her body in the bushes, went to a payphone at the beach of the nearby Marriott Hotel, and called a friend with a boat.

The friend arrived, looked at the body and said "she is dead." Together, they carried her on his friend's boat. The friend then sent Van der Sloot home, and sailed into the deep water to dispose of Holloway's body, according to the videotape.

Van der Sloot said he used the internet immediately upon arriving home, hoping to convince the police he had been home most of the night.

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