Aruba's Attorney General Karin Janssen speaks to the Associated Press in her office in Oranjestad, Aruba, Friday, July 1, 2005, regarding the case of missing Alabama teen Natalee Holloway. (AP Photo/Leslie Mazoch)
Posted on 07/02/2005 7:18:33 PM PDT by Libloather
Dutch Sending Jets to Find Missing Teen
By PETER PRENGAMAN, Associated Press Writer
11 minutes ago
Aruba's Attorney General Karin Janssen speaks to the Associated Press in her office in Oranjestad, Aruba, Friday, July 1, 2005, regarding the case of missing Alabama teen Natalee Holloway. (AP Photo/Leslie Mazoch)
ORANJESTAD, Aruba - Holland will send three F-16 warplanes rigged with search equipment to find Natalee Holloway, Aruban authorities said Saturday, as U.S. lawmakers increased pressure on the Aruban government to do more to find the Alabama teenager nearly five weeks since she disappeared.
The three planes, equipped with infrared and sonar-scanning capacity, were expected to arrive Sunday afternoon, said Aruban government spokesman Ruben Trapenberg.
Trapenberg said the planes were being sent after Aruban Justice Minister Rudy Croes requested more help from Holland, the Caribbean island's former colonizer.
"Both the justice minister and the prime minister feel that Holland can help us reach a resolution with this," said Trapenberg.
This week both Sen. Richard Shelby, a Republican from Alabama, and Alabama Gov. Bob Riley, wrote letters to Aruban Prime Minister Nelson Oduber urging the government to do more and let the FBI play a larger role in the investigation.
"With every passing day, I become increasingly concerned that the current investigation has reached a dead end," Shelby wrote in a letter dated July 1. "It's unfathomable that the Aruban government would not take advantage of the full spectrum of resources, personnel and expertise of the FBI."
Seven FBI agents have had an observatory role on the island since a few days after Holloway disappeared on May 30, but have repeatedly said they don't have jurisdiction to direct the searches or investigation.
Trapenberg said calls for an increased FBI presence don't make sense. "It's fine to have the FBI here, but if you send in more agents are you saying the ones here are not any good?" he said.
The teen's mother, Beth Holloway Twitty, said the U.S. pressure showed that family members aren't alone in their frustration with the pace of the investigation.
"It has become increasingly difficult to simply wait and see what happens," Holloway Twitty, a 44-year-old speech pathologist, said in an interview Saturday with The Associated Press.
The mother said the family was "graciously pleading" with the FBI and Holland to do more to find her daughter.
"It would be comforting for us if they were more active in this investigation," said Holloway Twitty. "We must demand and expect that Natalee be returned to her country."
Holloway, 18, from Mountain Brook, Ala., disappeared on the last of a five-day graduation trip with 124 classmates.
Island-wide searches — which have included Aruban police, the FBI, Dutch Marines, a rescue group from Texas and thousands of volunteers — have produced nothing.
Three young men have been detained in the disappearance: Dutch teenager Joran van der Sloot and his friends, Surinamese brothers Deepak Kalpoe, 21, and Satish Kalpoe, 18.
Trapenberg said Friday that the three young men have not been formally charged but could be as soon as Monday. Trapenberg has not said what charges could be filed against the three. They were scheduled to go before a judge Monday to learn if their detentions would be extended another 60 days. Under Dutch law that governs Aruba, a protectorate of the Netherlands, detainees can be held 116 days before being charged by a judge.
Trapenberg said Friday that the three young men have not been formally charged but could be as soon as Monday.
The three were the last ones seen with Holloway the night she disappeared. They were arrested June 9 and on Monday were expected to go before a judge who would decide whether to extend their detention an additional 60 days while prosecutors prepare their case.
This whole situation is awfully strange...
Trouble is they don't have any lobsters that speak aruban.
Oh, but those are magic planes! They can see in caves, ponds, abandoned freezers and cars....You know, all the places the Arubans have not searched yet. Keystone Kops indeed!
Why do some other countries thinks it's ok, admirable even, to lie to us? It's like they really get off on pulling one over on us. How stupid do they think we are??
Well someone on the internet said they could do that so it must be true ;-)
I'm with you ambient is ambient.
Search with radar? Amazing.
Guess they've finished the investigation into Van Gogh's Isl***c verse posting killer...
Puhleese!!! This is July 2. Where were they on June 2?
Reagan80
You do have a point there. Aruba ought to get real suspicious if they note a spike in male Alabaman tourists...
Reagan80
Yes, of course, you are right. Not sure why I had the Nevada desert in my mind. Thanks for the info.
Trivia question. How long does it take the Dutch to clean the cobwebs off their F-16s? Answer: Obviously about 30 days.
I know your question is rhetorical (um, YOU think so too, right?); but it's just crying to be asked: How stupid do you think they think you have to be? :)
Your (hopefully) rhetorical question was asked on a radio show I heard about a week ago (scanning the AM band late at night - didn't get a call on the station, so I can't offer verification) and the response was basically "you're the foreign media - you're nobody. no one has to tell you a damned thing about anything and just remember that you only exist at the pleasure of those who continue to listen to you. It's a foreign country with foreign authorities in charge - you don't even have a right to be acknowledged by them if they don't want to, and your opinions mean nothing to them".
I loved it and wished I could've gotten the station's call to send them an email!
Those jets must have special, super-secret, fish-food sniffing sensors.
That'd be the kind of super-secret weapons-platform development the Dutch would focus on.
So, how is Tiger? And that dashboard thingy....is it fun? I think my G3 deserves an update...only because I can't customize the visited links colors in Safari...all the fun stuff doesn't run on Jaguar!
Well hey don't waste any time, ok?
I watched that smart assed Dutch puke, when he responded with that cute non-response to the question....
The "coverup" is underway...
The incompetence is being explained as the "Dutch System"....."quite unlike the American system".....
This missing girl situation, is going to lead to something MUCH larger - I fear.
Semper Fi
The F-16 was called the Falcon until the LANTIRN upgrades. The Viper name is a reference to the IRcapability of the LANTIRN pod.
If you figure the F-16s will bring along 40 personnel (pilots, maintenance, and intelligence)...thats $2 million easily for 10 days of effort (jet fuel in the Caribbean will be expensive). And I'll bet that at least $1 million has already been spent on efforts around the island. But Aruba is getting desperate...this whole thing could trigger a mass exit of tourists. They need to wrap up this whole episode. And I doubt seriously that it can come clean in the end.
What do you mean? Spit it out.
The mega-duh is Punk's daddy Mr. Do-You-Know-Who-I-Am-A-Judge-That's-Who told Punk, "No body, no problem."
A month of rope-a-dope and counting--and the smart money remains the same: there will be no formal charge, let alone trial, let alone conviction--let alone body.
No charge, no trial, no conviction, no body.
The right move would be W and Condi saying, hey, no body, no tourism--how do you like this embargo?
That will not happen. We're too busy looking out for the welfare and civil rights of illegal aliens and the poor Gitmo detainees.
Citizens rate dead last.
Well since this is a media driven soap opera how about having the media pay the bills?
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