Joran van der Sloot, the convicted killer who admitted murdering Natalee Holloway, fears he could be killed inside a notorious Peruvian prison after allegedly accumulating gambling debts with inmates who have threatened to “piñata-ize” him, Our News Outlet can exclusively reveal.
Attorney Maximo Altez said his former client wrote to him last month pleading for help to secure a transfer from Challapalca prison. “Please go to the judge and tell him they want to kill me,” van der Sloot reportedly wrote.
The Dutch inmate has launched a legal effort to move to a less severe facility, alleging that he faces death threats, extortion and psychological torture from fellow prisoners. He also claims the danger has become so serious that his wife no longer visits him.
Van der Sloot is serving concurrent US and Peruvian sentences for attempting to extort Holloway’s mother, murdering Stephany Flores Ramirez and smuggling drugs into prison. Although he confessed to killing Natalee as part of a US federal plea agreement, he was never prosecuted for her death.
Altez claimed van der Sloot provoked fellow prisoners after borrowing money to support what he described as a compulsive gambling habit. According to the lawyer, van der Sloot told inmates he expected to make “big money” from a film about his life.
“He thinks he’s a rock star because all the newspapers and news outlets talk about him,” Altez, 70, told Our News Outlet in an exclusive interview.
“People know Joran is famous. But the problem is that when you are famous, you have to be rich.
“Joran is poor, and now he cannot pay his debts because he has no money.
Natalee Holloway’s killer, Joran van der Sloot, fears he could be murdered inside a notorious Peruvian prison after allegedly accumulating gambling debts with dangerous inmates
Holloway, an Alabama teenager, disappeared during a graduation trip to Aruba in May 2005 after leaving a nightclub with van der Sloot and two friends
“He owes money to too many people, and now they want to kill him,” Altez said.
Altez said van der Sloot was stabbed about a month ago and is considered so vulnerable that prison authorities have placed him in an isolation unit, known as “the hole,” for 23 hours each day.
Van der Sloot was transferred to Challapalca in August 2014 after allegedly threatening to kill the warden at his previous prison in Lima, Our News Outlet reported at the time.
The maximum-security facility houses some of Peru’s most dangerous criminals and is notorious for its punishing conditions.
Challapalca sits in a remote mountainous region of southern Peru near the Bolivian border. The nearest city, Puno, is about a six-hour drive away over dirt roads.
“It is the worst prison in the world,” Altez said. “The food is bad, there is no medicine, and it is about 5,000 meters [roughly 16,400ft] above sea level, so you cannot even breathe.”
Van der Sloot has written a series of handwritten complaints and court filings in Spanish in an effort to obtain a transfer, alleging that inmates inside the prison are actively plotting to kill him.
In letters sent to prison officials in September and reviewed by Our News Outlet, he claimed inmates had repeatedly attempted to enter his isolation unit and had threatened to kill, poison and rape him.
The 39-year-old Dutchman, pictured during his extradition in 2023, has pleaded to be moved from Challapalca prison, which his former lawyer called the “worst prison in the world”
The remote maximum-security prison sits about 16,400ft above sea level, where extreme altitude and limited medical access create especially harsh conditions
“That is psychologically torturing me and affecting my mental health,” van der Sloot wrote.
In one account, he said a group of inmates threatened to “piñata-ize” him and told him “it would be best if I killed myself.”
In another letter, van der Sloot alleged that prisoners left a bag containing broken glass, a rock and a demand for money on the patio beside his isolation unit.
In a third complaint, he claimed inmates were offering up to 50,000 Peruvian soles—about $14,000—to anyone who could smuggle a gun into the prison and kill prisoners held in the isolation unit.
“It is worth mentioning that if I am killed, it will become news nationally and internationally,” he wrote.
Van der Sloot said the intimidation had become so severe that his wife, Leidy Figueroa, stopped visiting after being threatened during a prison visit in August.
“It scared her so much that we agreed she would never return to this penitentiary,” he wrote.
Figueroa’s latest visit came three years after reports suggested that she and van der Sloot were separating.
Altez previously claimed that van der Sloot intended to divorce his wife for a “younger, prettier” girlfriend, Eva Pacohuanaco, who was accused of smuggling drugs into his former prison.
Holloway’s remains have never been recovered, and she was declared legally dead in 2012. Van der Sloot has said he pushed her body into the Caribbean after beating her to death
Natalee’s mother, Beth Holloway, spent nearly two decades seeking answers about her daughter’s disappearance
Van der Sloot married Figueroa, 36, at Piedras Gordas prison in Lima in July 2014 while she was heavily pregnant with their daughter, Dusha, who is now 12.
In an expanded habeas corpus petition, van der Sloot alleged that five inmates had been killed at Challapalca this year, including two who were reportedly murdered on the same day in September.
He said his extended isolation was aggravating diagnosed anxiety and bipolar disorder, conditions he claims are treated with a combination of prescription medications.
Van der Sloot accused prison officials of delaying his transfer request for months despite his repeated warnings that his safety was at risk.
As of October 31, he said his habeas corpus petition, filed August 11 with the Superior Court of Justice in Puno, had still not been decided.
“As this concerns my life, physical integrity and mental health, I request that the competent authority issue a ruling as soon as possible,” van der Sloot wrote.
The current status of his legal challenge is unclear. Court officials declined to provide Our News Outlet with details of the case or related documents.
“If they do not move Joran, sooner or later he will be dead,” Altez warned.
Van der Sloot finally confessed in 2023 to killing Holloway on an Aruba beach, nearly two decades after her disappearance shocked the nation
The killer married Leidy Figueroa, 36, at Piedras Gordas prison in Lima in July 2014 while she was heavily pregnant with their daughter, who is now 12
“In two or three months, people are going to kill him.”
Despite his warnings, Altez made an extraordinary admission: he fears the “serial killer” could strike again if released.
“If Joran goes free, he will be a danger to the entire population because he has mental problems.
“He has to be in prison, because if Joran were on the street, he would kill more people.”
Before becoming an attorney, Altez said he worked for the police and encountered many criminals, but few were as dangerous as van der Sloot.
“One of the most dangerous people I have ever met is Joran van der Sloot,” he said. “Nobody trusts Joran, and Joran trusts nobody. Even I do not trust Joran.
“Joran is a bad person. But we go back a long way because I have known him for 16 years. I know he did bad things, but right now he is being tortured.
“He is suffering a lot. I do not like that, which is why I help Joran.”
The teenager’s disappearance is revisited in the new Netflix documentary Taken: Natalee Holloway
The documentary follows Beth Holloway’s relentless search for the truth about her daughter’s disappearance and murder
Last December, van der Sloot was reportedly found close to death in his cell after an apparent suicide attempt.
In April 2024, he reportedly suffered cuts and bruises when inmates attacked him in a communal area of the prison.
Even so, many people will find it difficult to feel sympathy for him.
In 2023, van der Sloot finally admitted killing Holloway, who disappeared during a high-school graduation trip to Aruba in 2005.
Her disappearance is explored in the Netflix documentary Taken: Natalee Holloway, which chronicles her mother Beth’s 20-year effort to discover what happened to her daughter.
The Alabama teenager disappeared after leaving a nightclub in a car with van der Sloot and two of his friends in May 2005.
For years, van der Sloot, who lived in Aruba with his late father, Paulus, a judge in training, and his mother, Anita, an art teacher, denied involvement in Holloway’s disappearance.
He was arrested twice but released without ever being charged.
The convicted killer claims his wife stopped visiting Challapalca prison after inmates threatened her during a visit in August
After Holloway’s disappearance, van der Sloot was convicted of murdering Peruvian woman Stephany Flores, pictured
His confession was part of a US plea agreement involving wire fraud and extortion charges. He had attempted to obtain $250,000 from Beth in exchange for information about her daughter’s remains and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Van der Sloot admitted beating Holloway to death before disposing of her body in the Caribbean. Her remains have never been recovered, and she was declared legally dead in 2012.
Asked about the documentary, Altez said: “I feel sorry for Natalee’s mother because she is a good person. Everything she says is true. Joran did something horrible.”
In 2010, van der Sloot killed Stephany Flores Ramirez, a 21-year-old student from a wealthy family, in Lima—five years to the day after Holloway disappeared.
He received a 28-year prison sentence for Ramirez’s murder, which he is serving in Peru alongside his US sentence.
In 2023, he received an additional 18-year sentence for smuggling cocaine into prison.
Van der Sloot is scheduled for release in 2045, when he will be 57 or 58, under Peru’s 35-year limit on prison terms.
Beth Holloway and her attorney, John Q. Kelly, did not respond to Our News Outlet’s requests for interviews. Holloway’s father, David, declined to comment.
Our News Outlet contacted Figueroa, Pacohuanaco and Peru’s National Penitentiary Institute for comment but received no response.
