PDA

Ver la versión completa : Botched Holloway case continues to damage Aruba tourism



SENSACIONES
8th February 2009, 09:04
Aruba's chief public prosecutor has defended the police investigation into the disappearance of Natalee Holloway. He claims it was one of the most expensive homicide investigations of all time. Meanwhile, allegations of Aruban corruption rumble on. The investigation into the disappearance of Natalee Holloway was one of the most expensive investigations of its kind ever carried out in the world, according to Aruba's chief public prosecutor Hans Mos. Speaking at a press conference on the island, he said he estimated that the investigation had cost more than 7.5 million euros.
"I would challenge the United States to produce a homicide investigation that cost as much as this. This cost a fortune. The Netherlands sent detectives who had to be given accommodation, and F16 aircraft as well."
Intense media coverage
The controversial Holloway case has attracted intense media coverage around the world, particularly in the US and the Netherlands, and the investigation has attracted heavy criticism. Natalee Holloway, then aged 18, disappeared during a school trip to the Dutch island of Aruba in 2005. She vanished after a drunken nighttime trip to a beach with Dutch student Joran van der Sloot, then aged 17, and two older friends. He was one of ten people arrested during the investigation, but was never charged. He was to become the focus of massive media attention and outrage, amidst allegations of police failure to bring him to justice.
In February last year, Dutch crime reporter Peter R de Vries screened a controversial documentary which he claimed solved the case. Hidden camera footage showed Joran van der Sloot confessing that Natalee Holloway had become unwell and died on the beach. He said he had arranged for a friend to dispose of the body at sea. However, a Dutch judge ruled that the footage didn't provide sufficient evidence for him to be rearrested.
Investigation continues
The public prosecutor's office says the investigation will be continuing for some months. Chief public prosecutor Hans Mos declined to name a specific date on which the police would close the case. Neither would he say if the office had come any closer to bringing charges against Joran van der Sloot.

There appear to be few leads left to follow up in the case. Many tip-offs have proved fruitless. A fisherman claimed that on the night of the disappearance a large knife was stolen from him, and in the same month a large lobsterpot went missing. The lobsterpot turned out to have been at his home all along. Fabric retrieved from the sea by the costly research vessel Persistence proved after all not to match Holloway's clothing. A recording of an incriminating telephone conversation allegedly between Joran and his father is currently being analysed for authenticity by the Dutch Forensic Institute.
"Second rate police team"
Recently Aruba's justice minister Rudy Croes said that Dutch police commissioner Jan van der Straten had delayed the start of investigations in order to protect his friend, Joran's father Paulus van der Sloot, who was working for the Justice Ministry on Aruba at the time. Shortly after Natalee's disappearance in 2005, the Dutch police commissioner was reportedly overheard saying "I cannot do this to my friend Paul". Mr Croes also accused Mr Van der Straten of putting a "second rate police team" on the case.


On Wednesday in an interview with US news channel Fox News, Dutch right-wing Freedom Party MP Hero Brinkman repeated Mr Croes' allegations, and described Aruba as being "corrupt as hell". The interview came at the start of a biannual conference between politicians from the Netherlands and the Dutch Caribbean islands, the Antilles and Aruba. The meeting was cancelled last year following Aruban outrage at similar remarks made by Mr Brinkman. And this year too, angry Aruban politicians nearly scuppered the conference again in response to Mr Brinkman's comments on Fox News. Aruba's damaged reputation in the wake of the Holloway case continues to hamper the island's economy, which is heavily dependent on US tourism.
Mr Mos denied the allegations of corruption and deliberate failure to follow up the relevant leads. He said he had even spent two and a half months consulting a psychic on the case, "who turned out to have dreamed everything".