(CNN) A man arrested in connection with Natalee Holloway's 2005 disappearance has been ordered to remain in custody for another eight days, authorities on the Caribbean island of Aruba announced Monday. The 19-year-old man, identified publicly only by the initials G.V.C., was arrested Sunday. He is scheduled to appear Tuesday before a judge, Aruban prosecutors said in a written statement. The youth is not necessarily a suspect in Holloway's disappearance, but Aruban law allows authorities to hold someone without charges for questioning with a judge's approval. Holloway, from the Birmingham, Alabama, suburb of Mountain Brook, was in Aruba last spring with about 100 high school classmates and several parent chaperones.
She was last seen early May 30 leaving Carlos 'n' Charlie's, an Oranjestad nightclub, with Dutch national Joran van der Sloot, then 18, the son of an Aruban judge; and Surinamese brothers Deepak, 21, and Satish Kalpoe, 18. The Kalpoes told police they dropped Holloway, 18, and Van der Sloot off near a lighthouse at a beach north of the Marriott Hotel after they left the nightclub. Van der Sloot's mother said her son told her he was on the beach with Holloway but left her there alone because she wanted to stay. The three men were arrested in June and later released after a court in the Dutch Caribbean island ruled there was insufficient evidence to hold them. The Kalpoe brothers were re-arrested, but freed from jail in September. At one point, van der Sloot's father, Paul, and a disc jockey also were taken into custody, then released. The men's attorneys said their clients are innocent, and no one has been formally charged in the disappearance, which prompted a massive search of the tiny island by Dutch Marines, the FBI and hundreds of volunteers. Search specialists from Texas EquuSearch also lent their expertise. Aruba is a self-governing island off Venezuela under the protection of the Netherlands. The search teams focused on the beach at the island's northern tip — where van der Sloot said he last left Holloway — and a salt pond near the Marriott Hotel. In February, Holloway's parents, Dave Holloway and Beth Twitty, filed a lawsuit against van der Sloot. In court documents, the parents accuse the Dutch national of "malicious, wanton and willful disregard of the rights, safety and well-being of the plaintiffs and their daughter, Natalee Holloway." The parents asked for an unspecified amount of punitive damages from the young man and his father. Holloway's mother has said she is convinced the three men have information about her daughter's disappearance, and relatives and friends of the parents contended Aruba police failed to do an adequate investigation. |