Birmingham, Ala (WIAT) Legal maneuverings have worked for Joran van der Sloot before, so it's no surprise his lawyers were back in a Lima, Peru courtroom this morning.
The Dutchman is appealing the length of the sentence he received for killing Stephany Flores. Flores is the student he met in a Lima casino and subsequently killed after she found material about Natalee Holloway on his laptop. Her body was found on the fifth anniversary of the night Holloway left a bar in Aruba with van der Sloot and vanished.
Trying to get his 28 year sentence shortened is a double edged sword for van der Sloot since federal prosecutors here in Alabama are waiting their turn to bring him to justice.
A grand jury here in Birmingham indicted him more than eighteen months ago on wire fraud and extortion charges. The indictment says van der Sloot took money from the Holloway family after promising them information on Natalee's fate and where to find her body. He never delivered the promised information and, in yet another grisly irony, apparently traveled to his Lima murder scene on money he received from the Holloway family.
Under Peruvian law, the presiding judges have discretion on sentence length. Prosecutors had asked for 30 years, van der Sloot got 28.
But van der Sloot's lawyer, Jose Luis Jimenez says "But we can legitimately aspire to a greater reduction because from the beginning Joran van der Sloot showed co-operation with justice." Jimenez said.
The Peruvian Supreme Court will like rule on the appeal in the next four months.
Jimenez says his client deserves a break because of his cooperation. Not surprisingly, the lawyer for the Flores family disagrees.
The case caused a great deal of outrage in Peru because it was one of several involving Peruvian women killed by foreigners. One of van der Sloot's early cell block pals was an American known as the "suitcase killer" after murdering his Peruvian wife, chopping her up, putting her in his luggage and dumping her at sea.
