LIMA, Peru — Joran van der Sloot, the chief suspect in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway in Aruba, killed a young Peruvian woman in a “fit of rage” and therefore is guilty of manslaughter, not murder, his lawyer said Monday.
Radio Netherlands reported that van der Sloot’s Peruvian lawyer, Maximo Altez, would seek a reduced sentence in the death of Stephany Flores last May 30.
Under Peruvian law, manslaughter in a fit of rage carries a sentence of three to five years while a murder conviction can mean 25 years behind bars.
Altez said on Peruvian television that van der Sloot, a Dutch national, had no premeditated plan to kill Flores and that the pair argued after she looked at his laptop computer.
“They started pushing each other and that is why it happened,” he said.
Van der Sloot, 23, has been held in Lima’s Castro Castro prison since June 2010.
Flores’ body was found in a Lima hotel room booked in van der Sloot’s name. He fled the country after her death and was arrested in neighboring Chile.
Van der Sloot remains the chief suspect in the disappearance of Holloway, an 18-year-old student from Mountain Brook, Ala., who disappeared on May 30, 2005 during a high school graduation trip to Aruba.
She was last seen by her classmates outside a chain restaurant and nightclub in Oranjestad, in a car with van der Sloot and brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpoe.
A grand jury in Alabama indicted van der Sloot last June 30 for wire fraud and extortion after he allegedly asked Holloway’s mother for $250,000 to tell her where to find her missing daughter’s remains.
Van der Sloot was twice arrested in the Holloway case and spent three months in jail but was never charged.
Natalee Holloway’s body was never found.