BIRMINGHAM, Ala.—Joran van der Sloot, the chief suspect in the 2005 disappearance of Natalee Holloway, arrived in the United States on Thursday to face charges that he attempted to extort money from the missing woman’s mother.
An FBI-operated plane carrying van der Sloot landed at Birmingham’s Shuttlesworth Airport just before 2:30 p.m. and the suspect was escorted down the steps into a black SUV, which was to take him to a federal courthouse for a hearing.
Van der Sloot was extradited to the United States from Peru where he has been serving a 28-year sentence for the slaying of a Peruvian woman. He is wanted in the U.S. on one count each of extortion and wire fraud—the only charges to have ever linked the Dutch citizen to Holloway’s disappearance on the Caribbean island of Aruba. He was handed over in Peru to U.S. custody on Thursday, roughly a month after both countries agreed on his extradition….