JORAN van der Sloot has confessed to the May 30 murder of Lima woman Stephany Flores Ramirez.
A high-ranking Peruvian government official told NBC News that van der Sloot had confessed, following reports in the La Republica newspaper that said he broke Flores’ neck after she used his laptop without his permission and found out he was involved in the murder of the American.
According to the newspaper the Dutchman, who is also the prime suspect in US teen Natalee Holloway’s 2005 disappearance, explained that his anger exploded and said: “I did not want to do it. The girl intruded into my private life.”
Police said van der Sloot met the 21-year-old Flores, the daughter of a Peruvian former race car driver, while playing poker at a casino.
On Saturday, they released security footage of the two of them entering his room but only he left. Her battered body was found in the hotel room two days later with her neck broken.
Van der Sloot was detained in Chile on Thursday, and police handed him over to the Peruvians at the border town of Tacna on Friday.
Investigators said he left Lima the day after the murder for Chile in 1287km taxi ride to the border.
Van der Sloot was also at the centre of another criminal inquiry in 2005, when he was named as a key suspect in the disappearance of Holloway, an 18-year-old US student visiting the Dutch-run Caribbean island of Aruba, who was also murdered on May 30.
In that case, van der Sloot was twice arrested, but charges were never brought against him because of lack of evidence. Holloway’s body was never found.
Van der Sloot was later videotaped saying Holloway died after suffering a seizure and that an acquaintance helped him dump the body into the sea.
But later said he had made the comments under the influence of marijuana.
Van der Sloot was charged on Thursday in the US for trying to extort $250,000 from Holloway’s family in exchange for disclosing the location of her body and describing how she died.
Peruvian President Alan Garcia said Friday that van der Sloot would first have to be tried for Flores’ death before any extradition request could be considered.
The maximum sentence for murder in Peru is 25 years prison.
