Joran van der Sloot, prime suspect in the Natalee Holloway case, comes to the US to face an indictment

The prime suspect in 2005 Disappearance of American Natalee Holloway, Joran van der Sloot, has arrived in the United States to face racketeering and wire fraud charges related to promises he allegedly made to Holloway’s family that he would lead authorities to her body. Van der Sloot was transferred to U.S. law enforcement custody in Lima, Peru on Thursday morning and a plane took off at 9 a.m. to take him to Birmingham, Alabama.

It was unclear when he would first appear in US court.

Holloway was 18 when she went missing during a trip as a high school student to the Caribbean island nation of Aruba, where Van der Sloot, a Dutch national, lived. She was last seen leaving a bar with him. No one has ever been charged in her disappearance and her body has never been found. In 2012, an Alabama judge pronounced her dead.

Van der Sloot faced racketeering and wire fraud charges in the United States in 2010 for allegedly offering to sell information about the whereabouts of Holloway’s remains to her mother, Beth, for $250,000. Beth Holloway paid Van der Sloot some of that money directly and made another payment through an attorney, but the information was found to be false, the indictment said.

Van der Sloot is serving a 28-year sentence in Peru for the 2010 murder of 21-year-old Stephany Flores he confessed to the murder in his hotel room in Lima.

Under the terms of a 2001 US-Peru treaty temporary extradition is allowed to allow a suspect to be tried in the other country, and Van der Sloot will remain in the US until the end of the American criminal case, including any appeals, The Associated Press reported. He is then expected to be taken back to Peru to serve his sentence.

Peru’s ambassador to the US, Gustavo Meza-Cuadra, said he hoped Van der Sloot’s temporary extradition would “enable a process that will help bring peace to Mrs. Holloway and her family, who are in mourning as much as the Flores. Family in Peru mourns the loss of their daughter Stephany.