You read it here first: Joran van der Sloot will remain a free man. That article was based on mere analysis but now the expectation has become reality: a judge on Aruba has refused to allow the Prosecution Office (PO) to re-arrest Van der Sloot. The judge ruled that the man, who ‘confessed’ that he disposed of the body of Natalee Holloway after she died, was arrested twice before, without the PO being able to tag him with the murder or disappearance of Holloway. The judge didn’t want Van der Sloot arrested again; he deems the new “evidence” – a confession from Van der Sloot caught on camera while he was smoking drugs – not enough.
And that creates a problem. Could it be that the judge is seeing the same problems as written in my article? Unfortunately for the Holloway family, the man who apparently could not care less about what happens to other people (much less the girl he wanted to have sex with) will never be held accountable for his actions. Except by the public, of course. More than 7 million people in the Netherlands – that’s almost half the country – watched the TV-show by crime reporter Peter R. de Vries, in which Van der Sloot ‘confessed’. Other TV-shows, newspapers, magazines, the entire media worked the country into a frenzy before the show, aired yesterday. It may turn out to have been much ado about nothing.
Update: the former head of police on the island of Aruba, who acted as chief investigator in the Holloway case, just now said that he doesn’t believe that Van der Sloot will ever be arrested again until more evidence pops up. OK, so that’s that; we’ve had the story about the dead blonde us whites can all identify with. Can we now please focus on issues that I think really matter?
Communicatiestrateeg en schrijver van het boek ‘Megafoonpolitiek‘. Op Twitter te vinden als @kajleers. Politiek bewust, voormalig financieel-economisch journalist, muziekmaker, professionele kletskous, schrijver. Geeft ook social media-trainingen, denkt graag met je mee over communicatiestrategie. En ja, content is en blijft King.