Birmingham, Al (WIAT) Joran van der Sloot has beaten the system before. Now he's waiting to see if his murder confession will be thrown out by a three judge panel in Peru.
It's been a busy week for van der Sloot, the Dutch national who has confessed to killing Peruvian student Stephany Flores after she found material relating to Natalee Holloway on his laptop computer. News media in Peru had predicted a decision this week but no decision has been announced.
Van der Sloot is the prime suspect in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway. The Mountain Brook High School grad was on a graduation trip to Aruba. She was last seen with van der Sloot.
Flores' body was found in van der Sloot's Lima hotel room. He fled to Chile where he was arrested and brought back to Peru where he confessed to killing Flores.
His first attempt to get the confession thrown out was rejected. His current appeal is to a three judge appellate panel. His legal team claims the confession was coerced, that van der Sloot was given an adequate translator, and his lawyer during the interrogation misrepresented herself.
The proceedings in his case have been slowed down by his lawyer's claims there is no competent Dutch to Spanish translator available in Peru.
In a bizarre sidenote to van der Sloot's week, Peruvian prison officials are investigating who took a photo of van der Sloot mugging with three other prisoners. One of them is an accused hitman, another is an American known as the Suitcase Murderer, accused of killing his wife, dismembering her body, packing it in a suitcase and tossing it in the ocean.
Peruvian officials have moved the other prisoners in the picture from van der Sloot's cell block in the Castro Castro prison.
And if that's not enough, Peter DeVries, the Dutch TV reporter who has elicited several confessions from van der Sloot, was himself arrested on trespass charges in Perth, Australia where he was chasing another international murder suspect. DeVries says he's not guilty, posted bond and has left Australia.
