LIMA (Reuters) - Joran van der Sloot, the Dutch man who has confessed to killing a young woman in Peru and been linked to the mysterious disappearance of a young American woman in Aruba, hopes to win a reduced sentence of just several years in prison, his lawyer said on Tuesday.
Maximo Altez says he has filed a motion in court arguing his client was overcome with "violent emotion" and did not plan to kill Stephany Flores, 21, in a Lima hotel room on May 30.
That tactic would potentially reduce his sentence to three to five years, against the 25 years prosecutors could seek under charges of aggravated homicide, in which assailants plan their crime.
According to Altez, Van der Sloot became enraged after Flores found reports on his computer that showed he was a suspect in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway in Aruba during a high school graduation trip in 2005.
The Holloway case has received intense media coverage in the United States, but no one has been convicted for her disappearance from the Caribbean island resort.
Van der Sloot was considered a prime suspect and arrested in 2005 but released for lack of evidence. Her family has criticized Dutch authorities for not making more progress in the case.
A U.S. federal grand jury indicted Van der Sloot in June for wire fraud and extortion for soliciting money from Holloway's mother to reveal the location of her daughter's remains in Aruba and the circumstances of her death.
"Beth Holloway had been contacted and told she could finally gain information about the death of her daughter if she would pay $250,000," said a statement by U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance.
Van der Sloot fled to Chile after Flores' death but was soon captured and returned to Peru. He has not yet testified. Flores was seen in a casino with Van der Sloot before her body was found in a hotel room registered under his name.
(Reporting by Terry Wade; Additional reporting by Verna Gates in Alabama; Editing by Jerry Norton)
