Joran van der Sloot, a convicted killer and the prime suspect in the Natalee Holloway case, has been attacked in the Peruvian prison where he is currently being held, his lawyer said. Van der Sloot is the prime suspect in the 2005 disappearance of the American teenager and is awaiting extradition to the US. His lawyer Maximo Altez told ABC News on Monday that the Dutch man is in the medical wing of a Peruvian prison after he was beaten. He said the beating was not related to the upcoming extradition. Mr Altez claimed the beating might have been connected to gang rules inside the Challapalca Prison in Peru. The 35-year-old Dutch national is currently serving a 28-year-long prison sentence for the 2010 murder of Stephany Flores in Lima and is the prime suspect in the disappearance of teenager Natalee Holloway. Van der Sloot once claimed he shoved Holloway so hard to the ground that she hit her head on a rock and died, according to court papers. Holloway had disappeared on the Caribbean island of Aruba in 2005 during a trip to celebrate her high school graduation. A judge declared her legally dead in 2012. “Van der Sloot went on to admit that he had been with Natalee on the night of May 29/30, 2005, and that he had thrown her to the ground after she had attempted to stop him from leaving her,” stated a federal affidavit cited by Fox News. “Van der Sloot claimed that when she fell down, she hit her head on a rock and died as a result of the impact.” Federal prosecutors said Van der Sloot claimed his father had helped him hide the body, but when he took the lawyer to the alleged location, there was no sign of Holloway. After the lawyer left the island, Van der Sloot allegedly told him that he had lied about the location. Van der Sloot was indicted on extortion and wire fraud charges in federal court in Alabama in 2010 in connection with a scheme to get money from her family in return for the location of her body. But the same year, he was also convicted of murdering a 21-year-old student Flores after meeting her at her father’s casino in Lima, Peru. Van der Sloot will temporarily be sent to the US to go on trial for the extortion charges before being sent back to Peru. If convicted in Alabama, he would return to the US in 2038 to serve an 40 additional years in a US prison. “I was blessed to have had Natalee in my life for 18 years, and as of this month, I have been without her for exactly 18 years. She would be 36 years old now,” the teen’s mother, Beth Holloway, said earlier this month in a statement. “It has been a very long and painful journey, but the persistence of many is going to pay off. Together, we are finally getting justice for Natalee.” Read More Joran van der Sloot once confessed to shoving Natalee Holloway’s head into rock, court docs reveal A missing Alabama teen. A dead Peruvian student. Will Joran van der Sloot finally face American justice? Timeline of Natalee Holloway’s disappearance as prime suspect faces extradition

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A man tore up and burned a copy of the Quran outside a mosque in Sweden on the first day of Eid – after police granted permission for the demonstration Police later charged the man with agitation against an ethnic or national group. While Swedish police have rejected several recent applications for anti-Koran demonstrations, courts have overruled those decisions, saying they infringed on freedom of speech. "It's legal but not appropriate," Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said. The protest risks sparking a fresh diplomatic row with Turkey, who have been holding up Sweden’s bid to join Nato – an application made in the wake of Russia’s invasion of UKraine – over such protests, as well as accusations from Ankara that Stockholm is harbouring people it considers terrorists. Turkey has asked for a number of extraditions and for Sweden to address its security concerns. At the protest, some 200 onlookers witnessed one of the two organisers tearing up pages of a copy and wiping them on his shoe – before eventually setting the book on fire. After the burning, police charged the man who set fire to the Koran with agitation against an ethnic or national group and with a violation of a ban on fires that has been in place in Stockholm since mid-June. Some of those present shouted ‘God is great’ in Arabic to protest against the burning, and one man was detained by police after he attempted to throw a rock. Representatives of the mosque were disappointed by the police decision to grant permission for the latest protest on the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, mosque director and Imam Mahmoud Khalfi said on Wednesday. "The mosque suggested to the police to at least divert the demonstration to another location, which is possible by law, but they chose not to do so," Mr Khalfi said in a statement. Sweden applied to joint the alliance in the wake of the Kremlin launching its invasion of Ukraine last year, alongside neighbour Finland. The pair decided to drop their long-held stance of military neutrality in the face of Moscow’s aggression. Finalnd were welcomed into the bloc in April, and there were hopes that Sweden could follow suit at a summit in Lithuania in July. But that requires sign-off from all the blocs members. Beyond Turkey, Hungary has also been dragging out ratifying the move, despite officials suggesting they were behind the move. The Nato secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, announced on Wednesday that he has called a meeting of senior officials from Turkey, Sweden and Finland on 6 July, ahead of the summit later in the month, to try to overcome Turkish objections. "The time is now to welcome Sweden as a full member of Nato," Mr Stoltenberg told reporters as he announced his last-ditch effort. Foreign ministers, intelligence chiefs and security advisers from Turkey, Sweden and Finland, which joined Nato in April, will be taking part in the talks in Brussels. But the chance of membership being granted in July now look increasingly remote. The Turkish foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, condemned the protest as “vile” in a tweet. He added that it was unacceptable to allow anti-Islam protests in the name of freedom of expression. In late January, Turkey suspended talks with Sweden on its Nato application after a Danish far-right politician burned a copy of the Quaran near the Turkish embassy in Stockholm. In a phone call – that took place on Wednesday seemingly before the latest burning – Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, that while Sweden had taken steps in the right direction, there were still aspects of their behaviour that were “unacceptable” to Ankara. Meanwhile, Hungary’s parliament postponed ratifying Sweden's Nato accession to its autumn legislative session. The postponement, the latest in a long succession of delays that have gone on for a year, there was no suggestion in the announcement that the protest in Stockholm had played a part. Additional reporting by Reuters Read More NATO chief convenes July 6 talks hoping to convince Turkey to let Sweden join NATO warns not to underestimate Russian forces, and tells Moscow it has increased preparedness Cleverly to renew UK backing for Sweden’s Nato bid during visit

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The nation’s top environmental official said he fully supports his agency’s decision to block a proposed gold and copper mine in Alaska’s salmon-rich Bristol Bay, even as the state of Alaska has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn that action

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CANONSBURG, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 9, 2023--

The suspect in a 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue massacre has gone on trial before a jury that could decide whether he will face the death penalty in the nation’s deadliest antisemitic attack

Davis Schneider homered in his first major league at-bat and the Toronto Blue Jays tied their season-high with five home runs in a 7-3 victory over the Boston Red Sox on Friday night

LONDON British economic output contracted by a larger-than-expected 0.5% in July, figures from the Office for National Statistics