Sure, the fair trial/due process rights in the US Constitution apply to everyone we prosecute.
Personally, I think the confrontation clause is satisfied by a zoom appearance, but I’m not a federal judge, so my view doesn’t matter very much.
Joran van der Sloot, the prime suspect in the 2005 disappearance of Natalee Holloway in Aruba, has admitted to killing the Alabama teen, a US federal judge said Wednesday.
“I have considered your confession to the brutal murder of Natalee Holloway,” Judge Anna Manasco said after reading van der Sloot’s proffer.
You have brutally murdered in separate incidents years apart two beautiful women who refused your sexual advances,” the judge said, referring to a separate killing in Peru in 2010…
As a condition of a plea deal, van der Sloot was required to say how Holloway died and how her body was disposed of, Holloway family attorney John Q. Kelly told NBC’s “Today” show prior to Wednesday’s guilty pleas.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/18/us/joran-van-der-sloot-natalee-holloway-plea-wednesday/index.html
Interestingly, he gets to go back to Peru to finish out his 28 year sentence there, then he’ll be returned to the US to do his 20 year sentence. Dude is never getting out of jail.
Joran says he and Natalee were walking along the beach in Aruba after a late night out at a local bar. He says the two found a space on the sand, laid down, and started to kiss. Joran tells his attorney, “I start feeling her up again and she tells me no. She tells me she doesn’t want me to - to feel her up. Uh, I insist. I keep feeling her up either way.”
Angered by his advances, Joran says Natalee then knees him in the crotch … and he stands up and kicks her “extremely hard” in the face and knocking her out.
In a sickening confession, van der Sloot then says he grabs a nearby cinder block and smashes her in the head with it … “I smash her head in with it completely.”
Unsure of what to do with her body, van der Sloot says he then carries her into the water, walking until he’s about knee-deep and pushes her out into the water to be carried away.
From earlier media articles I had thought there was a much more complicated method of body disposal–and with a friend’s help.
The transcript of how he killed her:
Maybe his story is completly true. That guy has told so many stories.
I remember during the original search experts claimed the tides would push a body back to the beach. I guess they were wrong.
I’m glad the family has closure.
He had already gotten additional time in Peru for prison contraband, so his sentences in Peru now add up to 35 years with release in 2045. But the cited news report also says he will be allowed to serve all his sentences concurrently, in Peru, so if he makes it to 2045 w/o getting into more trouble he may make it out some day.
I remember reading about the killing in Peru. The woman just mentioned she recognized his name from the news. Joran freaked out and beat her to death.
His description of Natalie death is similar. She just rejected his advances and he pounded her head with a cinder block.
Imho he’s a psychopath.
Natalee’s mother said something to the effect she was satisfied with the confession. I’m not sure I would have wanted to hear exactly how she died.