Joran van der Sloot, the main suspect in the 2005 disappearance of American teen Natalee Holloway, has been “severely beaten” in the Peru prison where he is being held ahead of his extradition to the US next month, his lawyer said.
Van der Sloot’s attorney Maximo Altez told ABC News he does not believe the beating was related to his upcoming extradition, but may have happened because of gang rules inside the Challapalca Prison where he is being held.
“It was a fight between prisoners. I don’t know who assaulted Joran,” Altez told CBS News.
The 35-year-old Dutch citizen is currently being held in the prison’s medical aisle, his attorney said.
Altez said he plans to ask the Peruvian Justice Ministry to transfer his client to another prison as soon as possible.
He will be extradited to the US in early June to face fraud charges tied to the disappearance of Holloway, who went missing in 2005 during a senior class trip to Aruba.
Holloway was last seen leaving a bar in the Caribbean nation with Van der Sloot, then 17, who was identified as a suspect in her disappearance but never charged. She was 18 at the time of her vanishing.
Five years after Holloway was last seen, Van der Sloot met with her mom’s lawyer in Aruba and claimed his father had buried her under a house — only to retract his story in an alleged plot to get money from her grieving family.
Newly released court documents show how van der Sloot, then 22, offered to share what happened to Holloway with her mother’s lawyer in exchange for $250,000.
The agreement — which both Holloway, van der Sloot and the lawyer signed — was eventually modified so that van der Sloot promised to disclose the location of Natalee’s body for an initial payment of $25,000, the document states.
The contract stipulated that van der Sloot would receive an additional $225,000 once Holloway’s remains were positively identified.
The deal quickly fell apart when the contractor who worked on the home where van der Sloot claimed Holloway was buried said the property was not under construction at the time of her disappearance.
In an email, van der Sloot later admitted he had made up the entire story.
Days later, on the fifth anniversary of Holloway’s disappearance, van der Sloot strangled Stephany Flores, 21, at a casino in Lima, Peru. He was sentenced to 28 years behind bars and has been held in a Peru prison ever since.
Even with a murder conviction under his belt, van der Sloot continues to receive positive attention from “fans,” his attorney said earlier this week.
“All his fans from all over the world sent letters to Joran. I rented him a P.O. Box to receive them. Some letters brought 10 euros, 20 euros, 5 dollars. They were girls who wrote and sent him letters with money, and he answered them all,” Altez boasted.
Van der Sloot receives up to $400 each month from his “fans,” according to his attorney.
Van der Sloot famously got married and fathered a child while incarcerated — though he is now divorcing his wife for a “prettier and younger” girlfriend, Altez said.
After nearly two decades, no one has been charged in connection to Holloway’s disappearance. She was legally declared dead in 2012.
