Dutch Police Arrest Teenagers Linked To Natalee Holloway's Disappearance

November 21, 2007 6:30 p.m. EST

Oranjestad, Aruba (AHN) - Dutch police have arrested three young men previously detained for the disappearance of an 18-year-old American girl who was on a vacation with high school classmates in Aruba.

The Aruban prosecutor's office said in a statement that Joran van der Sloot and brothers Satish and Deepak Kalpoe were arrested on Wednesday by police on suspicion of involvement in manslaughter and causing seriously bodily harm. Van der Sloot was in the Netherlands attending university when he was arrested, while the Kalpoe brothers were arrested in the Dutch Caribbean island.

The three teenagers were among the first people detained and released in the investigation of the whereabouts of Natalee Holloway, who has been missing since May 30, 2005. They have denied any wrongdoing but have given conflicting testimony of what happened after Holloway was last seen with them.

Early this year a team of Dutch and Aruban investigators searched the homes of van der Sloot and the Kalpoe brothers but failed to find any new evidence, saying only there were "indications that justify a more thorough search."

Holloway was last seen outside a nightclub on the Caribbean island with Van der Sloot and the Kalpoe brothers, hours before she was scheduled to board a plane home to Birmingham, Alabama. She was on a five-day vacation with 124 classmates to celebrate high school graduation.