Facing a week of grilling, van der Sloot wants lawyer

LIMA, Peru - Joran van der Sloot will spend all week at police headquarters being questioned in the death of a 21-year-old Lima woman and has asked to be able to hire his own attorney, authorities said yesterday.

The Dutchman, 22, who is also the prime suspect in U.S. teen Natalee Holloway's 2005 disappearance in Aruba, is being held in a seventh-floor cell with a bunk bed and blanket and gets three hot meals a day, said Maj. Jose Gamboa, spokesman for the Peruvian national police.

Van der Sloot is suspected in the May 30 killing of Stephany Flores, a business student whom police say he met playing poker at a casino.

Police released video Saturday taken by security cameras at the hotel where van der Sloot had been staying since arriving from Colombia on May 14. It shows the two entering van der Sloot's room together and him leaving alone four hours later.

The woman's battered body was found on the floor of the room more than two days later, her neck broken. Van der Sloot had by then crossed into Chile, where he was arrested Thursday.

Dutch Embassy chief consular officer Angela Lowe said her government was providing van der Sloot with "regular consular assistance, which means an occasional consular visit, and we will make sure he is being treated decently, just like any other inmate."

She said Peruvian authorities have assured the Dutch government they are treating him well. "They are taking this case very seriously," she added. "The world is watching."

If tried and convicted of murder, van der Sloot faces a potential prison term of 35 years.

He remains, meanwhile, the prime suspect in the disappearance in Aruba of Holloway, an Alabama teen who hasn't been seen since May 30, 2005. He was arrested and released in that case, and faces no charges.

Van der Sloot was charged Thursday in the United States with trying to extort $250,000 from Holloway's family in exchange for disclosing the location of her body.

U.S. prosecutors say $15,000 was transferred to a Dutch bank account in his name. In the Netherlands on Friday, prosecutors raided two homes in the case, seizing computers, cell phones and data-storage devices.

Holloway, 18, was celebrating her high school graduation on Aruba when she disappeared. Van der Sloot told investigators he left her on a beach, drunk. That's the last time anyone has reported seeing her.