ORANJESTAD, Aruba (AP) – A judge on Saturday ordered the teenage son of a prominent justice official and two of his friends to stay in jail for at least another week while investigators search for clues in the disappearance of a young Alabama woman.
A disc jockey on an Aruban tourist party boat who also has been detained in the case was to appear before a judge Monday, the attorney general’s spokeswoman Mariaine Croes said as the search for 18-year-old Natalee Holloway neared the end of three weeks without any sign of the honors student.
Under Dutch law, which Aruba follows as a Dutch protectorate, authorities can detain individuals for up to 116 days without filing formal charges. A judge must review the case after the first 10 days, then every eight days after that.
Holloway, of Mountain Brook, Ala., disappeared in the early hours of May 30, the last day of a five-day vacation with 124 other students to celebrate their high school graduation.
Searches by authorities and volunteers have come up empty-handed, but investigators refused to say if they thought Holloway was dead. Her mother, Beth Holloway Twitty, has said she will continue to believe Natalee is alive until she has proof otherwise.
Judge Bob Wit, who came to Aruba from the neighboring Dutch island of Curacao, extended the detention of Joran van der Sloot, 17, and brothers, Deepak Kalpoe, 21, and Satish Kalpoe, 18, for eight days, Croes said.
A fourth man who was detained Friday was identified by his boss as Steve Gregory Croes, a 26-year-old disc jockey on the privately owned party boat “Tattoo.” He was arrested early Friday, a day after being contacted by police and giving them a statement, the boat’s owner Marcus Wiggins told The Associated Press. The detainee is not related to the attorney general’s spokeswoman.
Van der Sloot is the son of Paul van der Sloot, of the Netherlands, who is training to be a judge in Aruba. Holloway Twitty, 44, has insisted that he and the Kalpoe brothers hold the key to the investigation and she wants authorities to pressure the young men harder to tell the truth.
She said if significant progress is not made soon in the case, she may start to believe that authorities are protecting the detainees. Aruban authorities have said they are pursuing all leads and protecting no one.
On Friday, a judge ruled on a petition from the elder van der Sloot to visit his son, whom he has not been allowed to see since Joran was detained on June 9, and from the Kalpoes’ attorneys requesting to see any evidence prosecutors may have gathered. Croes declined to disclose the rulings, saying they had to come from the court. Court secretary Isella Wernet also refused to reveal the rulings. Defense attorneys did not return calls seeking comment.
It was not entirely clear how Croes might be connected to the other detainees. He told Wiggins that he knew one of the Kalpoe brothers because he went to the same Internet cafe, Wiggins said.
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