Dutchman Jan van der Straten, who was police commissioner on the Caribbean island of Aruba when US teenager Natalee Holloway disappeared, seriously hindered the investigation in the first few days, Aruban justice minister Rudy Croes is quoted as saying by news agency ANP.

ANP says Croes claims Van der Straten was slow to take action in order to help his friend Paul van der Sloot protect his son Joran, who was suspected of being involved in the disappearance. Such rumours have circulated on the island for some time, ANP says.
According to ANP, Croes made the statement following criticism of the Aruban police force made by Van der Straten earlier this week.
Questioning
Croes said that Joran and two other suspects were only taken in for questioning 10 days after Holloway went missing ‘when the first days are crucial in a disappearance’. And he claims he heard Van der Straten say ‘I cannot do that to my friend Paul’.
Croes also claims there were a lot of telephone conversations between Van der Sloot senior and Van der Straten and that a ‘second class’ police team was put on the investigation. ‘It was the team used during the carnival celebrations,’ ANP reports him as saying.
In addition, Croes accuses the Dutch government of failing to provide any moral support to Aruba. He says the Aruban authorities were pressurised to present Joran van der Sloot as an Aruban, not a Dutch national.
ANP does not say when and where Croes made the comments, or if it had picked them up from another source.