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NewsNovember 24, 2007

ORANJESTAD, Aruba -- A judge Friday ordered an extended detention of two brothers held in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway after reviewing new evidence in the case of the missing teenager. Surinamese brothers Satish and Deepak Kalpoe will be detained in separate jails for at least another eight days while prosecutors continue to pursue the investigation. The brothers have been held since Wednesday on suspicion of involvement in Holloway's death...

By MARGARET WEVER ~ The Associated Press

ORANJESTAD, Aruba -- A judge Friday ordered an extended detention of two brothers held in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway after reviewing new evidence in the case of the missing teenager.

Surinamese brothers Satish and Deepak Kalpoe will be detained in separate jails for at least another eight days while prosecutors continue to pursue the investigation. The brothers have been held since Wednesday on suspicion of involvement in Holloway's death.

A third suspect, Joran van der Sloot, was expected to arrive in Aruba on Friday, a day after a judge in the Netherlands approved his arrest and transfer, the prosecutor's office said.

Investigators are focusing in part on cell phone calls and text messages between the suspects, prosecutor Dop Kruimel said.

"It's part of the investigation," she said, declining to give further details. "We do everything we can to see what happened."

Van der Sloot will appear before a judge on Monday, Aruba's chief prosecutor Hans Mos said.

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All three men were previously held as suspects in the case but released for lack of evidence.

Holloway, of Mountain Brook, Ala., was last seen leaving a bar with the three on May 30, 2005, hours before she was scheduled to board a plane home with high school classmates celebrating their graduation on the Dutch Caribbean island. She was 18 at the time.

A search by hundreds of volunteers, soldiers, police and FBI agents -- even Dutch air force planes -- turned up no trace of her. Her father, Dave Holloway, said Thursday that he plans to launch a new effort to find her remains off the island's coast, using private boats.

Prosecutors said Wednesday that they had ordered the three men re-arrested and disclosed that they had new evidence, although officials declined to provide any details.

Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf, citing anonymous detectives in Aruba, reported Friday that the new evidence is derived from phone taps of conversations between Van der Sloot and the Kalpoes from earlier this year in which they contradict their earlier statements to police.

Attorney David Kock, who represents the Kalpoe brothers, told an Aruba radio station Thursday that the arrests were "an action of despair."

"There was no reason for their arrest now," Kock said. "We will take all kinds of measures to give our clients their freedom as soon as possible."

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