Brothers remain free in Holloway case

15 July 2005

AMSTERDAM — A Court in Aruba has rejected a prosecutor’s appeal against the decision to release two Surinamese brothers from custody as the search for missing American teenager Natalee Holloway continues.

The court also ruled that Dutch teenager Joran van der S., must remain in custody.

Satish and Deepak K., aged 17 and 21 respectively, and Van der S., 17, are believed to have been the last people with Holloway prior to her disappearance on 30 May. The three young men were arrested in June.

Police suspect Holloway, 18, was murdered but weeks of intensively searching has so far failed to find any trace of her.

Holloway was holidaying on Aruba with friends to celebrate their graduation from high school. Aruba is a Caribbean island of 71,000 people and an autonomous part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

The three judges hearing the appeal backed the decision taken by an examining magistrate earlier this month to continue the detention of Van der S. for 60 days and release the brothers. Van der S.’s lawyer had argued his client should also be freed.

In its judgements, the appeals court indicated that there were clear suspicions Holloway had been the victim of a serious crime, but that there was too little concrete evidence to justify keeping Satish and Deepak in custody for any longer.

The judges said that Van der S.’s case was different as he had made “contradictory statements” about 30 May and this warranted holding him for further investigation, the court said.

Prior to the appeal hearing, the missing teenager’s mother, Beth Holloway Twitty, voiced strong objections to freeing the brothers from custody. She insisted she has evidence that Joran was involved in Natalee’s disappearance.

“I definitely know those three individuals have involvement in her disappearance,” Twitty told a reporter from The Associated Press at her hotel in Aruba.

Subject: Dutch news, Aruba, Natalee Holloway