Aruba Court Releases Last Holloway Suspect

A judge has ordered the release of a Dutch suspect who was re-arrested last month in the disappearance of Alabama teenager Natalee Holloway, the Aruba prosecutors' office said Friday.

The judge called for Joran van der Sloot, 20, to be freed Friday afternoon, according to John Pauly, a communications consultant for Aruba's prosecutors' office. Details of the ruling were not immediately available and a news conference was scheduled for later Friday.

Van der Sloot was arrested Nov. 21 along with two other suspects, Surinamese brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpoe, who were released from jail on Saturday after a judge found the evidence was not strong enough to continue holding them.

The three men were the last people known to see Holloway alive before she vanished in May 2005 but have denied any role in her disappearance.

Aruba chief prosecutor Hans Mos called the decision to release the Kalpoes a setback, but said the investigation will proceed.

"We had hoped for a longer period to confront these suspects with the material we have against them," he said. "We were not finished with that yet. But this is the way the law says it has to go."

An attorney for Deepak Kalpoe, Hose Figaroa, said his client "is trying to get his life back to normal" and hopes that "finally this case will stop haunting him."

Holloway, 18, of Mountain Brook, Alabama, was last seen leaving a bar with the three suspects on May 30, 2005, hours before she was scheduled to return home with fellow high school classmates celebrating their graduation on this Caribbean island.