Joran Van der Sloot finally admitted in court to being guilty of murder. The 24-year-old Dutchman, long suspected in the 2005 disappearance of American teen Natalee Holloway, told a Peruvian court on Wednesday he killed a woman, Stephany Flores, in Lima in 2010. Click below to read the rest of the story.
“I want to give a sincere confession,” Van der Sloot told the court, adding he was “truly regretful.”
The sincere confession could qualify him for a shorter sentence under Peruvian law.
After the guilty plea, Van der Sloot’s lawyer, Jose Luis Jimenez, asked for leniency. He argued that his client suffered from posttraumatic stress syndrome because of the Holloway case.
“He was faced against the entire world for the past five years prior to the events …” Jiminez said, adding there was no proof he had killed the American teen. “It was five years after the disappearance of this American citizen and all media pointed at my client without having any evidence that he was in fact a monster.”
Van der Sloot remained mostly expressionless throughout the hearing, but at times shook his head and rocked back and forth.
The plea comes five days after Van der Sloot began his trial and at the last minute asked for more time to reflect on his plea. In that appearance, his attorneys hinted he was going to plead guilty, but disagreed with some of the charges against him.
“He has accepted the murder [charge],” Jimenez told reporters after that hearing, but added his client did not agree with the “aggravating factors of cruelty and ferocity.”
The panel of judges is expected to announce his sentence on Friday. According to Peruvian law, he faces between seven and 30 years in prison.
After his arrest in 2010, the Dutch poker player admitted to killing the 21-year-old Peruvian Flores in a hotel room after he claims he caught her looking up stories about Holloway on his laptop, authorities said. Prosecutors argue that he then stole her cash and bank cards and tried to cover up the murder by fleeing to Chile.
He was arrested there and brought back to Peru to face justice.
Although he was the lone suspect in the disappearance of Holloway, who vanished during a trip to Aruba in 2005, he was never charged in that case.
