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If anyone has jeopardized this case it is the Twitty family themselves. They have fed media with speculation and innuendo and when law enforcement doesn't bite on a hook with no bait, then they strong-arm the government and accuse them of a cover-up. Joran, his father and the Kalpoes may well be responsible for the disappearance of Natalee but it has never been up to this family to prosecute them and that is just what the family has done night after night from the day they arrived on the island. The Twittys are damn lucky this is in Aurba because if this were happening in the US you can bet they would be hit with restraining orders, gag orders, contempt of court, trespassing, and libel suits just to name a few.

ROFLMAO keep trying...Aruba LE scr*wed the pooch on this one and the HT's are exercising their freedom of speech to get justice. Have you got a problem with the truth coming out or justice? In the USA there would be some charges of making false statements to the police, obstruction of justice, underage drinking, gambling and depending on the state maybe even statutory rape...oh yea the cops would not likely let the three off based on their phony story, a request would have been made for a consent search, they would have been separated, questioned individually, taken to the station, if consent was not given, a warrant would have been obtained to search the house their cars impound evidence, computers, clothes etc that first night...PC would have been their first lies including Joran saying he didnt know Natalee then he dropped her off and finally he had sex with her when she was incompetent to give consent..

Better check your libel and tresspassing laws..I see neither so far...

Aruba is soft on crime...Wait till you hear about their "trials" mostly just submitting papers, no witnesses, but witness statments..now how can a judge determine credibility from a piece of paper?

http://www.isrcl.org/Papers/Malsch.pdf

Of special relevance for the principle of open justice is the fact that in Dutch criminal cases, most investigation is done by the police in the pre trial stage. Findings are reported in the case file. In most cases, at the actual trial no witnesses and experts are present to be interrogated. Judges base their decisions primarily on the written reports in the case files. There is a lot of paper work in Dutch criminal cases (Malsch & Nijboer, 1999). The somewhat aloof evaluation of evidence at trials, caused by the absence of witnesses and experts, must also have an influence on comprehensiveness for the news-media and the public at large. At trial sessions in the Netherlands, very serious cases are often tried in very little time. The presiding judge summarises in a few lines the reports of interrogations of witnesses, defendants, and experts, and reads aloud only a summary of the extensive reports on the defendant’s personality that have been drawn up by various mental health experts. It is highly questionable whether the general public can fully comprehend cases that are compressed to such a minimum. On top of that, the language that is employed by Dutch legal professionals may very well not be understandable for lay people. Legal terms are not always explained in court.2 This may undermine the working of the principle of open justice to a great extent (Hoekstra & Malsch, 2002). A study on the openness of trial sessions to the public demonstrated that the mean number of visitors per case in the gallery of trial sessions is seven (Malsch & Hoekstra, 1999). From these seven, one was a reporter for a newspaper and two were friends or family of the defendant. The remaining visitors either were part of a school-class or of a group of law students who visited a trial session for educational reasons. A mean of four people per case attended out of general interest in the adjudication of criminal cases. Visibility and audibility of the process from the public gallery, unfortunately, was far from perfect. The clarity of the spoken language differed substantially among the various process participants. 2 In a number of cases, the District Court of Amsterdam has drafted the allegations in colloquial language, but this was not accepted by the Court of Cassation. See HR, 22 juni 1995, NJ 1996, 126 and 127.

RS, I think you've hit on the biggest difference between the United States' justice system and the Aruban/Dutch justice system.

Most of it is done in print.

I think we keep waiting for some flashy lawyer who is the master of the public relations campaign to emerge but most of these people are brainiacs who are masters of the written word. They don't have to play to a jury or to the public from which a jury may be selected. They only have to make the best written argument.

This is the reason for all of the secrecy. Their justice system is epitome of deals made in the smokey back-room. Nothing is out in the open because it doesn't have to be. Public opinion means nothing to these people and I believe that is why they can't or won't see why this is such a PR debacle.

This is also why Joran has so many lawyers. They're researching and writing. All they have to do is sway the opinion of one man and doing this by bashing the victim, victim's family, etc. is all right in their minds because the judge is only going to look at their briefs from a legal standpoint and there lies the problem. In the US Joran would be convicted by a jury of his peers on the most minute piece of circumstantial evidence because of his lies and arrogance.

On Aruba none of that will come into play.

Just an observation on my part. Now I'll crawl back under my rock.

TAW