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(CNN) -- An investigative judge said Sunday that sufficient reason exists to reopen the inquiry against Joran van der Sloot, a suspect in the 2005 disappearance of Alabama teenager Natalee Holloway from the island of Aruba.
The announcement came shortly after Dutch television aired a program in which Van der Sloot told a man he considered to be his friend that he was with the 18-year-old on a beach near her hotel when she died, and that he arranged for a friend to take her body to sea and dump it.
"He went out to sea and then he threw her out, like an old rag," he told Aruban businessman Patrick van der Eem on January 16.
Van der Eem recorded their conversations on hidden cameras installed in the Range Rover he was driving, according to the report that aired Sunday night.
Van der Sloot has acknowledged making the remarks, but told an interviewer last week that he was lying.
Aruba's chief prosecutor, Hans Mos, described the account that aired Sunday night as "very impressive," and announced that he was reopening the investigation.
But the judge denied a prosecution request that van der Sloot, the son of a lawyer and judge in training, be detained in the Netherlands, where he is a student.
In a written statement, the Office of the Public Prosecutor said Sunday that it will appeal the judge's decision barring van der Sloot's arrest, but cautioned that the report does not necessarily solve the case.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/02/03/...ef=mpstoryview
The announcement came shortly after Dutch television aired a program in which Van der Sloot told a man he considered to be his friend that he was with the 18-year-old on a beach near her hotel when she died, and that he arranged for a friend to take her body to sea and dump it.
"He went out to sea and then he threw her out, like an old rag," he told Aruban businessman Patrick van der Eem on January 16.
Van der Eem recorded their conversations on hidden cameras installed in the Range Rover he was driving, according to the report that aired Sunday night.
Van der Sloot has acknowledged making the remarks, but told an interviewer last week that he was lying.
Aruba's chief prosecutor, Hans Mos, described the account that aired Sunday night as "very impressive," and announced that he was reopening the investigation.
But the judge denied a prosecution request that van der Sloot, the son of a lawyer and judge in training, be detained in the Netherlands, where he is a student.
In a written statement, the Office of the Public Prosecutor said Sunday that it will appeal the judge's decision barring van der Sloot's arrest, but cautioned that the report does not necessarily solve the case.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/02/03/...ef=mpstoryview