Can Joran Van Der Sloot Be Charged Over Natalee Holloway? Experts Disagree

Criminal attorneys have spoken to Newsweek about potential issues with charging suspect Joran van der Sloot with homicide in the case relating to the disappearance of American teenager Natalee Holloway.

Dutch national van der Sloot is set to be extradited to the U.S. to face indictments related to Holloway's 2005 disappearance. He is is currently in a Peruvian prison for murdering a local woman five years after Holloway disappeared.

Earlier this week, van der Sloot's Peruvian lawyer, Maximo Altez, said that his client cannot be accused of killing Holloway because her body has never been found, according to a Fox News report.

Criminal Defense attorney Rachel Fiset, managing partner of Los Angeles-based Zweiback, Fiset & Zalduendo spoke to Newsweek and said that despite a body not having been found, van der Sloot could still be accused and face charges of homicide.

Criminal Justice attorney Tangi Carter, of the Tangi Carter and Associates P.A. law firm, disagreed and suggested the case could be more complicated.

The 18-year-old Holloway was last seen leaving a bar on the Dutch Caribbean island of Aruba with the then-17-year-old van der Sloot in the early hours of May 30, 2005, at the end of her school's graduation trip. She was reported missing when she failed to show up for her flight home later that same day.

Holloway was never found and a judge declared her legally deceased in 2012. Beth Holloway, Natalee's mother, revealed in a statement that van der Sloot was due to be flown to Birmingham, Alabama, for temporary extradition. Newsweek has emailed the PR firm Patriot Strategies, whose contact details were provided in the statement, for further information.

Speaking to Fox News Digital, Altez said: "Mrs. [Beth] Holloway is sure that he killed her daughter. I have never said that [van der Sloot] had nothing to do with the homicide, what I have said is that they are taking Joran for extortion and bank fraud.

"They can't accuse him of the girl's murder because the body has never been found," Altez said.

Speaking about Altez's comments, Fiset said: "It is simply not true that van der Sloot cannot be charged without authorities finding a body.

"Plenty of cases are charged without the location of a body, for instance, look at the recent murder charges Brian Walshe faces for his wife's murder or the recent conviction of Paul Flores for the 1996 murder of Kristin Smart where no body was ever found."

Fiset did note additional evidence would help strengthen a charge against van der Sloot, however.

She added: "In the case of Natalee Holloway it will be difficult to charge van der Sloot with her murder without some new piece of evidence against van der Sloot because the case is so old—but that new evidence certainly does not need to be a body.

"Van der Sloot is being extradited for wire fraud and extortion charges but that does not mean that new evidence connecting him to her murder may not result from the investigation into his newest alleged crimes. If something new is uncovered, it very well could lead to murder charges."

Addressing the possibility of van der Sloot facing murder charges without a body, Carter said a prosecution's case could be "incredibly weak."

She said: "It really depends on the jurisdiction and the law specific to that jurisdiction regarding whether they can prosecute without a body in a murder case.

"Typically, the general consensus among lawyers is that, even if the law in that jurisdiction allows for the prosecutor to move forward with a criminal trial without a body, the case is still incredibly weak."

She added: "The main issue [for the prosecution] would be that the defense attorney would argue that there is reasonable doubt and the jury should find the client not guilty as the prosecutor cannot prove every element of the crime of murder because if there is no body, there is always the possibility, even if it's a remote possibility, that the person is still alive."