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Judge Arrested in Aruba Case

Aired June 23, 2005 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: We want to continue looking into the case of missing Alabama teen Natalee Holloway. There you are looking at the picture of an Aruban judge, Paul Van Der Sloot. He's also the father of a 17-year-old, Joran, who is in custody.
Well, now the judge himself has been arrested in connection with the disappearance, the investigation of the disappearance of Natalee Holloway. It was just over the weekend that the was questioned by investigators and let go. He was questioned as a witness. Now prosecutors say he is a suspect in the case.

In all now, five are in custody. None have been charged, however.

Karl Penhaul is in Palm Beach, Aruba, with the latest.

Karl, have we given you enough of an opportunity to do a little bit more reporting to advance this story?

KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, let's just recap on what has happened.

About an hour ago now, shortly after 2:00, we're told by Mariane Croes, the spokesperson for the prosecution service, investigators arrested Paul Van Der Sloot. As you say, he's a judge here on Aruba, and he's also the father of Joran Van Der Sloot.

He had not been permitted any access to Joran in the days since Joran's arrest, about two weeks ago, and we do know that he was questioned on two consecutive days by police at a downtown police station to see what he may have seen or heard in the days following Natalee's disappearance. But at that stage police said he was being interviewed as a witness, not a suspect.

And even during the course of the week, when I talked to the police commissioner, he said he didn't expect to arrest Paul Van Der Sloot. But that arrest has now taken place. And he is now in the -- one of six hours of interrogation that he will undergo. After that, prosecutors will have to extend or apply to a judge to extend his period in custody.

Now, this arrest came a few moments after we had just come back from talking to the mother of two other suspects in the case, the Kalpoe brothers. The Kalpoe brothers, along with Joran Van Der Sloot, the son of the judge who's just been arrested, were the last three people known to have seen Natalee as she left the Carlos 'N Charlie's bar. And what the Kalpoes' brother's mother has told us is that her sons were lying in their initial interviews to police.

This is what she had to say...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NADIRA RAMIREZ, MOTHER OF ARUBA SUSPECTS: ... which corner he's coming from. And when I saw him coming, I can't believe. He was so thin.

I hugged him. He's just like a child of three years. He's so thin, because I know they are not eating. They're very hard (ph) in eating.

And he told me, "No, no, mama." He was not crying. But he said "No, no, mama, don't do it. Don't cry. We didn't do anything."

"We will be out from here. Don't cry." That you will bring down yourself if you cry. I said, "Satish, I can't imagine I am seeing you like this."

And we sat and we talked. And I asked him, "Satish, are you sure you guys didn't do anything?" "No, mama, we give that girl a ride and left."

They don't even know Natalee. They said she didn't even introduce herself to them, "Hi, I'm Natalee." They don't even talk a word with her.

He said, "Me and my brother gave them a lift" and they came home. They don't know anything else about that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PENHAUL: What Nadira Ramirez was referring to there was a version of events recounted to her by Satish Kalpoe, her younger son, when she paid him a visit at the prison on the island. She also went on to say that the two boys, her two sons, admitted they had lied to police because initially they said to police that they had dropped Natalee off at the Holiday Inn on the morning of May 30. They went on to tell their mother, though, that they told a lie.

They said they were covering for Joran. And, in fact, dropped off Joran and Natalee at a beach near the Marriott Hotel about a mile away from the Holiday Inn -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: And now, Karl, back to the judge, since he was questioned over the weekend, did investigators in any way reveal the kinds of questions they were asking him as a witness?

PENHAUL: No, investigators have played their cards very close to their chest. In fact, since the whole investigation began. We do know, though, that those questioning periods did last for several hours, both on Saturday and again on Sunday.

In general terms, what the investigators told us was they were trying to find out if Paul Van Der Sloot had heard or seen anything, or heard anything from his son, Joran, in the days since Natalee disappeared. Because you'll remember that Joran Van Der Sloot and the two Kalpoe brothers were questioned as witnesses in Natalee's disappearance, but it wasn't until 10 days after that disappearance that they were formally arrested.

WHITFIELD: OK, Karl. Don't go to far away.

We're going to go to Mariane Croes, who is the prosecutor's spokesperson out of Aruba. She's on the telephone with us now.

Ms. Croes, why was the judge arrested today?

MARIANE CROES, SPOKESPERSON, PROSECUTORS: He was arrested today at about 2:00 p.m. this afternoon because at this point he's a suspect. There is a reasonable suspicion that he knows something and that he is involved in the disappearance of Miss Holloway.

WHITFIELD: When you said he knows something, are you also implying that he was a participant?

CROES: That is something that must be investigated. And that will be done now that he is being interrogated as a suspect. So that is something that at this point I cannot give specific information about. He's just now in his first six hours of detention.

WHITFIELD: OK. First six hours of detention, all of those six hours are to be interrogation, and then you must go to the judge to apply for any more time to spend with him?

CROES: No. The first six hours are for interrogation.

WHITFIELD: Sorry about that. We lost that connection with Mariane Croes, the prosecution spokesperson out of Aruba, explaining that at least six hours, the next six hours will be devoted to interrogating Judge Paul Van Der Sloot, who is a judge, who is also the father of a young man, 17-year-old Joran, who is also now among those arrested. Now five in all arrested in connection with the disappearance of the Alabama teen, Natalee Holloway.

We're going to take a short break -- oh, sorry about that. Misunderstood.

We've got instead a criminal defense attorney now out of Philadelphia, Ted Simon, who is on the phone with us.

All right, Ted, maybe you can explain to us. There are some huge differences between criminal law here in the states and how things are handled there in Aruba.

TED SIMON, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Yes, I heard you got cut off and maybe I can fill in the blank for you.

WHITFIELD: Yes, perhaps you can. Six hours we know of interrogation. And there, what?

SIMON: Right, the first -- the first six hours is interrogation. We would think that the person who is the suspect would have to speak with interrogators. He does not.

We all know about Miranda warning in the United States. Well, in Aruba they also have something similar. It's called cautio C-A-U-T-I- O, where they're warned they're not required to speak to investigators, and, in fact, have the right to remain free from self- incrimination. One would think the judge or judge in training there would know that, so there's a question of whether or not he actually will speak to them now that he's put in the position of being a suspect.

The other key difference is, in the United States, one cannot be arrested or charged without probable cause. And that means facts and circumstances based on reasonably trustworthy information that causes a prudent person to believe a crime was committed and the person who's accused did it.

Down there, as your spokesperson said, you only need reasonable suspicion. It's a much lesser standard, and it's only some indication that a person may be involved.

So this is really testing the waters in the sense that they are clearly pulling out all the stops to arrest a judge in training, the father of a suspect, in a situation where, at least, the public doesn't know if there actually is a crime. Certainly, something untoward happened to Natalee, and it's a horrible situation. But to date, we haven't heard yet what is the basis to demonstrate that there is a crime.

I would also say that this has now become a battle of two families. It's dueling nightmares, the family that has lost Natalee for now, and the other family, who has lost a son, at least to the judicial system, and now a father.

I think what we have on behalf of the Twitty and Holloway families is a fear of what has happened. And as to the Van Der Sloots, a fear of what is yet to come.

It's a remarkable development that you're reporting. And the question is, what, if anything, has Paul Van Der Sloot have to do with this -- with this matter, and what, if anything, does his son?

So, again, I think we have a lot of questions. We have a clear demonstration of the difference between our system, requiring probable cause before you arrest someone, and down there, where you don't need that and can.

Now, I have actually represented and had cases both in Aruba and Curacao, and I can tell you without naming names, for one, where someone was arrested, an American who did nothing wrong. It was based on a mistaken situation, spent approximately two or three months, and was ultimately freed as a result of our work. So...

WHITFIELD: And because you say all -- all that's needed there is reasonable suspicion.

SIMON: Yes. WHITFIELD: And that's a very broad context.

SIMON: Very, very low threshold of proof. It's speculative.

I mean, don't forget, originally, the two security guards were arrested and detained for sometime. It certainly appears now they had nothing to do with it, at least that's the feeling.

So, again, it would seem that if there's anyone in doubt that the Aruban authorities are pulling out all the stops, regardless of person or station in life, they're certainly doing it.

WHITFIELD: Yes.

SIMON: But the question is, are they overreacting to the pressure, or do they have a good-faith belief as to the information they have that would warrant this type of arrest?

WHITFIELD: Ted Simon, thank you so much for joining us on the telephone from Philadelphia as a criminal defense attorney, one that is very familiar with the way Aruban law takes place as well.

You heard him describe he handled a couple of cases there. So he certainly was the right person to go to.

Let's go now to Karl Penhaul, who has a little bit more information on where this investigation is going -- Karl.

PENHAUL: Well, what we've heard in the last few moments from law enforcement sources close to this investigation is that they are telling us that Paul Van Der Sloot has been arrested because they believe he may have been covering up for Joran, certainly covering up in the aspect that he tended initially to back Joran Van Der Sloot's story that they had dropped Natalee off at the Holiday Inn. Now that that version of events seems to have been proved to be a lie, because the Kalpoe brothers and Joran Van Der Sloot have now backed away from that version of events, this is why law enforcement sources are saying that they arrested Paul Van Der Sloot, because they believe he may have helped Joran Van Der Sloot put together that cover story -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: That's quite remarkable. And now what about the fact that -- the judge is going to be questioned over the next few hours. This is a man who, obviously, is very savvy about the law, being a judge or a judge in training.

What do we know about the parameters of his discussion, whether he really has kind of the upper hand in this interrogation, knowing how the system works?

PENHAUL: He certainly does know how the system works, and it is correct to describe him as a judge. He, himself, has described himself to CNN as a judge, and also the attorney for Joran Van Der Sloot has described Paul Van Der Sloot as a judge. So there's no question about that. And also, because of his legal training and training before that as an attorney, and before that, his position as a prominent official within the prosecution service itself, he will well know how these interrogations go, how the periods of questioning go, and how long he may be likely to spend in custody, and the kind of treatment he's going to get -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: OK, Karl. Ted Simon, who's a criminal defense attorney out of Philadelphia, we were talking to him just a moment ago. He is still on the phone.

And Ted, perhaps you can address that, some of the questions that he might be asked.

SIMON: Well, let me -- yes, let me add a little bit to your very fine report there.

What you have is police can arrest. There's an initial period of six hours where they can interrogate. They are not required to present the accused or the suspect to a judge. They have 48 hours to do that.

Once they do that, the judge makes a decision whether to permit a continued detention or not. And if so, thy can detain for another eight days, and then two succeeding periods of eight days.

So there's the -- there's a continual review of the first two days to see if the person can be held up to 10 days. And then there's another period of review. And the longer you hold someone, the greater the standard goes up on whether or not you can continue to detain. And this can go up, by some accounts, to 116 days, or even a little bit more.

So, there is an opportunity for counsel. You have a right to counsel. And there's an opportunity to move the court to be released from the detention.

Now, that failed with respect to the -- initially for the two security guards, and it also failed with respect to Van Der Sloot and the Kalpoes. However, keep in mind, when the lawyers moved on behalf of the security guards for detention, which I think was a short time ago, the judge said his docket was too busy. And the next day the prosecution released them before the judge had a chance to rule.

So expect the judge to be ably represented. And I guess this is just going to become more dramatic as time goes on. Like I said before, it's truly dueling nightmares. The nightmare just got worse for Joran Van Der Sloot's mother.

WHITFIELD: Wow. Well, it is, indeed, remarkable. Ted Simon, criminal defense attorney out of Philadelphia, thank you so much.

And we'll have more on this developing story. The judge, the father of one of the suspects, now in custody in connection with the disappearance of Natalee Holloway in Aruba. A prosecution spokesperson telling us they have reason to believe that he may have been covering up for Joran, who is the 17-year-old, Joran Van Der Sloot, the 17-year-old who is also in is custody in connection with the disappearance of the Alabama teen.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: More on this breaking story we are following for you. A fifth person has been arrested in connection with the disappearance of Alabama teen Natalee Holloway. That fifth person is a judge, Judge Paul Van Der Sloot, who also happens to be the father of a 17-year-old who is already in custody, Joran.

The judge had been questioned over the weekend as a witness. But now prosecutors say that they have reasonable suspicion. And by Aruban law, that's all they need. They have reasonable suspicion to believe that he knows something in this case, and that's why they have arrested him.

Just moments ago, Dave Holloway, who is Natalee Holloway's father, had this to say...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVE HOLLOWAY, NATALEE HOLLOWAY'S FATHER: Well, it's just -- it just adds that additional piece to the puzzle. And how big is the puzzle? I don't know. But the pieces are falling into place and falling into place very quickly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: All right. We're going to try to play that again for you, once we get the audio worked out.

Ted Simon, who's a criminal defense attorney, joins us on the telephone from Philadelphia. He's very familiar with Aruban law, which is rather complicated.

Ted, thanks so much for sticking around. Unlike in the U.S., where you can't be arrested without some probable cause here in the U.S., that certainly does not apply as we see it now playing out in Aruba. Why?

SIMON: Absolutely. As we've been reviewing, it's a basic fundamental constitutional protection in the United States that a person cannot be arrested unless there's probable cause, which has been defined to mean facts and circumstances based on reasonably trustworthy information that would give a prudent person pause to think in terms of whether or not the person committed a crime who is accused, and whether the person did it.

But down there, you don't need that degree of facts and circumstances. You just need some indication or a reasonable suspicion. And that shows, clearly, the difference between our system and theirs, where, down there, they may be able to arrest someone on reasonable suspicion, in the United States they can't. Now, I'd also indicate what's -- we didn't hear the complete piece by Mr. -- is it Twitty or Holloway, the father...

WHITFIELD: Yes, we did not get a chance to hear all of that from Dave Holloway.

SIMON: Right. But I think if we remember clearly, both Natalee's mother and father were speaking. And they spoke yesterday or the day before in terms of suspecting that other peoples might be arrested.

WHITFIELD: Yes.

SIMON: And you just wonder if some of this information that the police were considering has been shared with them, because it didn't take very long between what they had to say before and then this new surprising arrest.

WHITFIELD: And Ted, just because -- we need to describe what we're seeing on the screen right now. We're looking at video being replayed of the judge, the father, who was kind of running to his car after being requested throughout the weekend from prosecutors there, trying to avoid answering questions from the reporters there.

SIMON: But, you know...

WHITFIELD: He was interviewed over the weekend just as a witness. But apparently the prosecutors felt like they had enough information that they gathered from that interview, or perhaps even from continuing to interrogate the other young men who were in custody, to now apprehend him and consider him one who gave them reasonable suspicion.

SIMON: Right. And, you know, you point to that video many people have watched of the father running away where the cameras were following him. And that certainly looks suspicious and troubling.

WHITFIELD: Yes.

SIMON: But, on the other hand, let's not forget that recently the mother of Van Der Sloot has come out very forcefully defending her son. And on top of that, which may not be as well know, the -- both Mr. Van Der Sloot and his wife met with Natalee's mother at their home the other day, and they both -- they were -- she was invited in, and went back out, which seemed to be some kind of cooperative healing process, at least to the naked eye. But who knows truly what was in the works.

WHITFIELD: All right. Ted Simon, thank you so much for helping to fill in some of the blanks here. Still an incredible mystery still unfolding.

A lot of questions we don't have the answers to as of yet. But thanks so much for helping us so much on this.

So, once again, a fifth arrest now in the case of the Alabama teen. That fifth suspect now in custody in Aruba is Judge Paul Van Der Sloot. He is also the father of one of the 17-year-olds who is currently being held.

More on that story as we get it.

Now on to some other news we are covering here on CNN.

A terrible mistake, that's what the defense secretary says he would be making by establishing a firm deadline for withdrawing troops from Iraq. Donald Rumsfeld and several top commanders spoke at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing today.

A growing and bipartisan group of lawmakers is pressing the Pentagon for a pullout deadline. Rumsfeld says he doesn't have one, and if he did, terrorists would benefit from that information.

Now an exclusive interview with Vice President Dick Cheney. Cheney sat down just a short time ago in Washington with CNN's Wolf Blitzer.

And Wolf, what did you learn from the vice president today?

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Fredricka, I learned the vice president is not backing at all away from his strong words only a few weeks ago, his assessment that the U.S. was winning the war in Iraq, and that the insurgency, in his words, were in their last throes. I pressed him on that point, but he refused to back away from it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If you look at what the dictionary says about throes, it can still be a -- you know, a violent period, the throes of a revolution. The point would be that the conflict will be intense, but it's intense because the terrorists understand if we are successful in accomplishing our objective of standing up a democracy in Iraq, that that's a huge defeat for them. They'll do everything they can to stop it.

I mean, look back at World War II. The toughest battles, the most difficult battles both in Europe and the Pacific occurred just a few months before the end, the Battle of the Bulge in December of 1944, and Okinawa in the spring of 1945. And I see this as a similar situation, where they're going to go all out and they'll do everything they can to disrupt that process.

But I think we're strong enough to defeat them. And I think the process itself of establishing a democracy and a viable security force for the Iraqis will, in fact, signal the end, if you will, for the terrorists inside Iraq.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: The vice president declined to offer an assessment of how much longer this insurgency would last or how much longer U.S. troops would have to remain in Iraq. He said the U.S. troops will remain there until the job is done.

He also refused to say where Osama bin Laden specifically might be hiding out. He did seem to agree with the CIA director, Porter Goss, that the U.S. has a pretty good idea where he is, but he said they don't have a street address -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right. And Wolf, and on Guantanamo, the vice president has made it clear in the past that he sees no reason to close Guantanamo or change the system there. Did he elaborate any further on that?

BLITZER: He did. He said that the detainees, the more than 500 terrorist suspects, should remain at Guantanamo, it would be a mistake to move them to the United States or elsewhere.

These are hardened terrorists, in his words, and they are getting a pretty good life down there in the tropics. He used that phrase. So the vice president not budging at all on the issue of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay. He does not want to shut down that facility.

All right. Wolf Blitzer, thanks so much from Washington.

And, of course, you can watch more of that exclusive interview with the vice president on "WOLF BLITZER REPORTS." Wolf will bring you that during the 5:00 hour, 2:00 Pacific.

That wraps up this Thursday's edition of LIVE FROM. Here's Dana Bash with a preview of what's ahead on "INSIDE POLITICS."

Hello, Dana.

DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Fredricka. Thank you.

Well, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and top military leaders were questioned by members of Congress today about the status of the war in Iraq. We will tell you what they had to say.

And Democrats are lashing out at White House adviser Karl Rove after he said that all liberals wanted to do after 9/11 was offer therapy and understanding to the attackers. We'll ask the president's chief of staff, Andrew Card, about Rove's comments and the war in Iraq in an interview you'll only see on CNN.

"INSIDE POLITICS" begins in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: A look at the headlines now before we go to "INSIDE POLITICS."

Paul Van Der Sloot has been arrested in Aruba. He is the father of a jailed teenager being held in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway, that Alabama teenager.

Police have spoken to the father in the course of the investigation as a potential witness. Prosecutors now tell CNN that he is a suspect. In Mississippi, Edgar Ray Killen is going to prison. The 80- year-old former Klan leader was convicted of three manslaughter counts stemming from the deaths of three men in 1964. His sentence, the maximum allowable, 60 years.

And three boys ages 5 to 11 are missing in Camden, New Jersey. They were last seen last night playing together outside. Since then, nothing. Their parents are frantic and police are combing the neighborhood.

I'm Fredricka Whitfield. Now to Dana Bash with "INSIDE POLITICS."