News: Joran Van der Sloot gets 28 years for Peru killing

News: Joran Van der Sloot gets 28 years for Peru killing - Joran Van der Sloot, a key suspect in the disappearance of Alabama teen Natalee Holloway in 2005, has been sentenced to 28 years for killing a Peruvian woman he met at a Lima casino.

The court also ordered him to pay $75,000 in reparations to the victim's family.

The court, taking into account the time he has spent in jail, says he would be eligible to be freed in June 2038.

Update at 1:01 p.m. ET: Under Peru's penal system, Van der Sloot could become eligible for parole after serving half of the sentence with good behavior, including work and study, the Associated Press reports.

Update at 12:59 p.m. ET: The victim's father, Ricardo Flores, complained after the verdict that Van der Sloot was enjoying favorable conditions in a Lima prison, where he has been living apart from the general population and foreigners with money can buy superior treatment, the Associated Press reports.

"A jail isn't a 5-star hotel," Ricardo Flores told reporters. "Let's hope the authorities take that into account and not just in our case."

"Since the first day we've been complaining about the excessive privileges" that Van der Sloot allegedly enjoyed in jail. He said he would present evidence of this at a news conference on Monday.

Original post: The prosecution had requested a 30-year sentence, but the court said it had reduced it by two years because of Van der Sloot's "sincere confession" to the murder, leading to a speedy conclusion of the case.

Van der Sloot, 24, pleaded guilty on Thursday to the killing of Stephany Flores, 21, last year in a rage at his hotel room in the Peruvian capital.

Van der Sloot, who looked directly at the three-person tribunal during the sentencing, appeared restless throughout much of the long process of reading the history of the case.

He fidgeted, wiped sweat from his face, drank water and exchanged comments with his defense attorney.

The only time that he looked down for any length of time and would not face the tribunal was when the panel read out portions from the record that included comments from his defense attorney.

In that section, the defense attorney, in an attempt to win leniency, noted that the Flores killing occurred at a time that Van der Sloot had been "persecuted throughout the world" over the Holloway case. It also followed not long after Van der Sloot's father died, the defense noted.

"He was going through a period of post-traumatic stress," the defense attorney was quoted in the record as saying, as Van der Sloot stared at the floor.

The tribunal noted, however, that the killing of Flores was "extremely violent," and involved beating and strangulation. It said that he flew into a rage after Flores discovered information on his laptop linking him to the Holloway case.

Van der Sloot also stole money that Flores had won that night at a casino and took her credit cards before fleeing to Chile, where he was arrested.

Van der Sloot was implicated in the disappearance of 18-year-old Holloway during the teenager's class trip to Aruba.

On Thursday, a county judge in Birmingham signed an order declaring Holloway legally dead.

Van der Sloot was briefly charged in her disappearance, but the case was never prosecuted.

He faces federal charges in Birmingham for allegedly trying to extort $250,000 from the Holloways for information about Natalee's whereabouts.

Source:http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2012/01/joran-van-der-sloot-gets-xx-year-sentence-for-peru-killing/1#.UA2W3fXzp-w