Peru’s national penitentiary institute INPE has clarified that Dutch citizen Joran van der Sloot was not involved in stabbings of fellow inmates at Lima’s maximum security Miguel Castro Castro prison.
INPE said in a statement that a report claiming Van der Sloot’s involvement “is false.”
Van der Sloot’s lawyer, Maximo Altez, said he may press charges against two journalists from Dutch magazine Panorama, which originally published the information.
“I’ve checked the information with the director of the penitentiary institute and all of it is made up,” Altez was reported as saying by daily El Comercio. “Behind the information are dark intentions to harm Joran.”
Van der Sloot is being held in connection to the 2010 slaying of Stephany Flores, a 21-year-old University of Lima business administration student.
Van der Sloot is also the prime suspect in the disappearance in Aruba of US teenager Natalie Holloway.
