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Search team from Texas to look for missing Alabama teen in Aruba

6/21/2005, 4:41 p.m. CT By PETER PRENGAMAN The Associated Press

ORANJESTAD, Aruba (AP) — A volunteer group from Texas said Tuesday it will bring special dogs and sonar equipment to Aruba to help search for teenager Natalee Holloway, who has been missing for three weeks on the resort island.

A team of 17 volunteers, including three divers, from Texas EquuSearch will arrive Wednesday to look for 18-year-old from Mountain Brook, Ala.

She disappeared on May 30, the last day of a five-day vacation with 124 students celebrating their high school graduation. Her passport and packed bags were found in her room.

Four men have been arrested on suspicion but no one has been charged.

The volunteers will stay five to seven days, said Joe Huston of Texas EquuSearch in a telephone interview from Dickinson, Texas.

He said Holloway's uncle, Paul Reynolds, asked for the group's help because three weeks of searches had turned up nothing.

Upon arrival, the team planned to meet with Aruban authorities and FBI officials to review past search routes and plot new areas, Huston said.

Aruban authorities accompanied by FBI observers have scoured the island on foot, in vehicles and using a helicopter with infrared equipment at night. Tourists and Aruban civilian volunteers also have helped, but none has turned up any trace of Holloway.

Aruban government spokesman Ruben Trapenberg said authorities welcomed the Texas group's help.

"In the end, they are just going to be tourists searching and that's OK," Trapenberg said. "And they have specialized equipment, so that's even better."

Natalee Holloway a wòrdu asesiná ?

Latest developments in Aruba: Hasibokos.com has received information that on Tuesday afternoon, Joran van der Sloot was transferred from the jail facility at Noord to the local prison, KIA.. It is part of the normal procedure to transfer detainees who have been detained for more than 10 days to prison. We learned that the brothers Kalpoe have already been transferred to KIA.

UPDATE 31:The media in Aruba today is mostly reporting that the detention of Steve Croes has been prolonged. He’ll be detained for at least 8 more days. The picture is from the front page of AweMeinta and was taken while Croes, who had his face covered with his shirt, was being escorted into the court house. The local media is also reporting that the mother of Natalee Holloway, Beth, hired a local attorney to look into the case and that she hired an American organization, Texas EquuSearch, to help look for Natalee. According to FoxNews Beth Holloway is contemplating suing the Aruban government (the justice department in particular), but the local media of Aruba is not going as far a saying that nor is the Dutch media. The media in The Netherlands is also reporting that Beth wants to get insight in the case (documents) an that she hired an attorney to help her with this. They are not reporting that Beth wants to sue. Hasibokos.com has also learned that some political parties in Aruba, just as Beth Holloway, are criticizing their justice department. Earlier we informed you about the criticism that prime minister has been getting (Update29 ). On Monday local political party OLA gave a press conference during which they informed that they have compiled a document which contains a summary of the many mistakes that, in their opinion, have been made by the justice department during the treatment/investigation of the Holloway case. Many local are questioning the timing of this public criticism as the justice department of Aruba is already under a lot of pressure. The general opinion of the Aruban community is that this is not the time to be criticizing the justice department as there is too much attention right now on the Holloway case and this may lead to the broad (mis)conception that the Aruban justice system is flawed. (FYI: Prolonga = Prolonged)

The thing about this case that I find truly amazing is how the media sat by for weeks asking questions and explaining away why progress wasn't being made with how Aruba's "legal system is different from our own," as if we were supposed to just sit back and take it while an American goes missing.

How much of this train wreck is the result of our media's focus on diversity and multi-culturalism such that we'd sit back and watch cronyism take place right before our eyes while some island-resort judge is allowed to protect his son from a murder charge while the rest of are being told only that "their system is different from ours?"

What's preventing the media from calling Arubans out on their inept police department and sloppy protectionism of their own? Fears of being called anti-multi-culturalist?

-PJ