ORANJESTAD, Aruba (AP) — Aruban police yesterday detained the father of a Dutch teen who already was in custody in connection with the disappearance of Natalee Holloway, the teen’s mother said.
“My husband was just picked up by police,” Anita van der Sloot, referring to Paul van der Sloot, said in a telephone call to the Associated Press. “I don’t know what to think.”
Mr. van der Sloot is a judicial official on the Dutch Caribbean island.
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Mrs. van der Sloot was about to leave the house for an interview with the AP when police came for her husband, she said. She did not have any additional information about the detention.
Mariaine Croes, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Caren Janssen, told CNN: “There is a reasonable suspicion that he knows something and is involved in the disappearance.”
Four others have been detained in connection with Miss Holloway’s disappearance May 30. The 18-year-old Mountain Brook, Ala., woman was celebrating her high school graduation.
The others in custody are Joran van der Sloot, 17; his friends Deepak Kalpoe, 21, and brother Satish Kalpoe, 18; and Steve Gregory Croes, 26. No one has been charged in the case.
Although Mrs. van der Sloot had been allowed to visit her son occasionally in jail, authorities denied similar access to Mr. van der Sloot, saying they thought contact between the two could damage the investigation.
Joran and the Kalpoe brothers were with Miss Holloway the night she disappeared. They said they drove her to a northern beach and then dropped her off at her hotel, where she was approached by a security guard.
Miss Holloway has not been seen since.
Yesterday, Mrs. van der Sloot said her son has changed the story he initially gave police and now admits to being alone with Miss Holloway on a beach. She said he insists he did not hurt her.
“He says, ’Mom, I dropped the girl at the beach. I walked with her. I left her there because she wanted to stay there. I left and I don’t know what happened. There my statement ends,’” Mrs. van der Sloot said.
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