Joran van der Sloot alleges attempted murder: a new account after his prison transfer
In a letter to John van den Heuvel, Joran van der Sloot gives a different account of the incident that left him seriously injured in his Peruvian cell in December 2025. He alleges an attack by four fellow prisoners. He now reports a transfer to Cochamarca, against a backdrop of violence, criminal cases and complaints about his safety.
Joran van der Sloot has written to Dutch crime journalist John van den Heuvel claiming that he survived an attack by four fellow prisoners in December 2025 rather than attempting suicide. Panorama reported the allegation on 9 November 2026, drawing on a discussion on RTL Boulevard. The account has emerged alongside reports of his departure from Challapalca prison.
According to the letter as described by Panorama, a former prison director persuaded him to give a different account. A transfer was allegedly offered in return but did not follow. This is Van der Sloot’s own allegation. Van den Heuvel stressed on Boulevard that he was still checking the story.
Peruvian authorities did report that Van der Sloot needed medical assistance in December 2025. On 14 December, Dutch broadcaster NOS reported that prison staff had found him seriously injured while distributing breakfast. Medical workers stabilised his condition, and he remained under medical supervision.
The circumstances were treated cautiously in contemporary reports. NOS said it was unclear what had happened in the cell and attributed the suicide-attempt account to Peruvian newspaper La República. RTL Nieuws reported the following day on an interview with Peru’s Panorama programme in which Van der Sloot himself spoke of depression and a wrong decision. His new account differs from those comments.
Concerns about his safety had made the news before the present transfer. In August 2026, Associated Press spoke to his lawyer, Máximo Altez. The lawyer said Van der Sloot was asking a court to move him to another maximum-security prison because of death threats. He read out a letter in which his client also described threats against his family.
Peruvian broadcaster Canal N also reported his application for judicial protection. It concerned a habeas corpus petition filed on 5 August: a legal procedure seeking protection against infringements of liberty and personal safety. The broadcaster described a handwritten document in which Van der Sloot complained about prolonged isolation, threats and their impact on his health.
Reports of a move to Cochamarca followed on 7 November. According to the coverage, Van der Sloot telephoned relatives and De Telegraaf from a transport bus to announce the transfer. Panorama says renovation work at Challapalca prompted the move and that other prisoners were being relocated too. Those reports therefore do not establish a connection with his alleged agreement with the director.
Challapalca is remote and high in the Andes. AP placed the prison at about 4,600 metres above sea level. His complaints about threats and isolation thus concerned a heavily secured institution far from Lima. His reported happiness about moving does not establish exactly what happened in December 2025.
Van der Sloot is imprisoned in Peru following the murder of Stephany Flores Ramírez in Lima in 2010. He originally received a 28-year sentence for that killing. His imprisonment also draws international attention because of the Natalee Holloway case. The American teenager disappeared in Aruba in 2005, and her body has never been found.
In 2023, Van der Sloot was temporarily brought to the United States for a different prosecution: extortion and fraud involving Natalee’s mother, Beth Holloway. According to the US Justice Department, he sought money in 2010 in return for information about her daughter and the location of her remains. He received $25,100 in total and supplied information he later described as worthless.
On 18 October 2023, he pleaded guilty to extortion and wire fraud and received a 20-year sentence from a federal judge in Alabama. Under the agreement, he was required to give complete and truthful information about Natalee’s disappearance. AP reported that he admitted killing her during those proceedings. The US conviction concerned extortion and fraud, rather than a separate murder trial.
The current developments have two parts: the reported move to Cochamarca and his new account of the earlier prison incident. The RTL Boulevard video from 7 November included with this article discusses the transfer. The police photograph is an archive image from 2023. In the cited reporting, the allegations against fellow prisoners and a former director originate with Van der Sloot himself.
