Joran van der Sloot pleads not guilty

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (NewsNation) — Joran van der Sloot, the chief suspect in the 2005 disappearance of Natalee Holloway, pleaded not guilty to fraud and extortion charges Friday morning.

Van der Sloot, according to NewsNation affiliate WIAT, was escorted out of prison in Peru on Thursday morning to begin the trek to America.

Van der Sloot was extradited to the United States from Peru where he has been serving a 28-year sentence for the slaying of a Peruvian woman

Van der Sloot in 2012 pleaded guilty in Peru to killing 21-year-old Stephany Flores, a business student from a prominent Peruvian family. She was killed in 2010 five years to the day after Holloway’s disappearance.

He is wanted in the U.S. on one count each of extortion and wire fraud — the only charges to have ever linked the Dutch citizen to Holloway’s disappearance on the Caribbean island of Aruba. He was handed over in Peru to U.S. custody on Thursday, roughly a month after both countrie...