Francey Hakes: Don't believe anything Joran van der Sloot says
Former federal prosecutor Francey Hakes assesses convicted murderer Joran van der Sloot's confession of how he killed Natalee Holloway in Aruba in 2005.
Joran van der Sloot, the Dutch national who brutally killed Alabama 18-year-old Natalee Holloway during her class trip to Aruba as a high school senior in 2005, has been pummeled in a remote Peruvian prison, where he previously boasted of conjugal visits with multiple women.
The 36-year-old murderer is locked up in Peru for the 2010 death of Stephany Flores, the daughter of a Peruvian business magnate whom he killed in her father's casino five years to the day after Holloway's murder.
The motive of the attack is unclear, according to the New York Post, which first reported the beating, but two inmates jumped him in a prison common area before guards stepped in. Medics reportedly treated him for cuts and bruises and sent him back to the general population.
Van der Sloot's lawyer, Lima's Maximo Altez, blasted the claims.
PERU ALLOWS NATALEE HOLLOWAY'S KILLER MULTIPLE CONJUGAL VISITS FOR HIS MENTAL HEALTH, REHABILITATION
Joran van der Sloot smiles as he prepares to leave the airport in Lima, Peru, on June 8, 2023. (Col. Carlos López Aeda for Fox News Digital)
"He's fine," he told Fox News Digital. "It's 'fake news.'"
Altez has previously complained that prison officials have limited his communications with his client.
Authorities did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A national prison spokesperson earlier told the Post, "A lot of people want him dead."
A former inmate who did time with van der Sloot during his brief detention in Alabama last year told the paper that the killer, who stands 6 feet, 5 inches tall, is an arrogant "douchebag."
AUDIO: Listen to Joran van der Sloot's confession
"He walks around jail like he’s the boss, demands what he wants, treats other guys like s---," Emil Quinones told the paper. "He made a lot of enemies because he’s such an a--hole."
JORAN VAN DER SLOOT'S WHIRLWIND PLEA DEAL: ‘HE WON THE GAME,' BUT FAMILY ACCEPTS CLOSURE
Natalee Hollway, center, went missing during a spring break trip in 2005 and was never found. (FBI)
Van der Sloot is serving time in Peru's mountaintop Challapalca prison, a place Altez previously said he hates so much he was willing to talk to prosecutors in the U.S. in connection to federal extortion charges against him.
And his attitude doesn't appear to be helping, Quinones told the Post.
"I don’t think he’ll ever get out alive," he said. "All he really knows is prison and I think he likes it. He’ll either re-offend to stay in jail, or he’ll be killed by someone. I don’t know if he even cares one way or the other."
Outside San Pedro prison in Peru, one poster reads in Spanish, "Stephany Flores asks for justice," and the poster of Joran van der Sloot reads, "Spiritual punishment." In 2012, van der Sloot was sentenced to 28 years in prison for the Flores killing. (AP Photo/Karel Navarro)
Van der Sloot finally admitted in October to killing Holloway with a cinder block on an Aruba beach as part of the extortion and fraud case in which he tried to shake down the victim's mother for $250,000.
In an international plea deal, he is serving his sentence on the U.S. charges for extorting Holloway's mother in Peru.
Van der Sloot leaves Challapalca Prison ahead of his extradition to Alabama to face extortion charges. (APTN)
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Van der Sloot hates Challapalca, according to his lawyer, Altez, who calls it "hell." The prison is known to see temperatures below freezing on a nightly basis and is so remote that cell service doesn't reach it.
In 2014, Altez told Reuters that his client had been stabbed three times in the prison months after his initial transfer there for unruly behavior. However, officials told the outlet that the wounds looked self-inflicted.
Van der Sloot previously had his Peruvian sentence extended after a drug and phone smuggling scandal.
Aruba authorities have left open the possibility of prosecuting him there, even though the statute of limitations has expired on Holloway's murder.
