Prosecutor: Interview is Admissible

A hidden-camera interview with a Dutch student saying missing teenager Natalee Holloway was dead and that he had a friend dump her body at sea is admissible in court, the chief Aruban prosecutor said Monday.

The courts in Aruba will likely accept the tape as evidence because it was recorded by a private citizen without any influence by authorities, chief prosecutor Hans Mos told reporters.

"I take it very seriously," Mos said of the video.

The tape, which was first broadcast Sunday on Dutch television, has appeared to spur the investigation: Mos said authorities in the Netherlands searched two homes Monday where Joran Van der Sloot has lived while attending college there.

A judge in Aruba denied a prosecution arrest to detain Van der Sloot based on the new information. Mos said they will file an appeal today and expect a decision within a week.

The prosecutor declined to provide any details about the searches. Bert de Rooij, a lawyer for Van der Sloot in the Netherlands, said police took a hard drive and a laptop.

De Rooij, speaking on Dutch television Monday, said the college student would make himself available for questioning by authorities if necessary. "As far as Joran is concerned, that can happen soon," he told the news program "Nova."

In the secret recordings, Van der Sloot said Holloway, 18, was drunk and that she began shaking and slumped down on the beach as they were kissing in May 2005.

"Suddenly she started shaking and then she didn’t say anything," Van der Sloot said in Dutch, adding that he did not kill her. "I would never murder a girl."

He said he panicked and tried but failed to revive her. He said that Holloway looked dead but that he could not be sure she was not still alive when a friend took her away.

Mos said prosecutors believe Van der Sloot was telling the truth in the video because he seemed to struggle as he told the story and repeated it several times.

Last week, Van der Sloot said he was lying in those conversations and denied that he had anything to do with Holloway’s disappearance.

But Holloway’s mother, Beth Twitty, told ABC: "I don’t think any of us are surprised by his reaction" that his comments were fiction , "but I know one thing. Once people see the video of Joran, there are no more questions. There is no one who can walk away from this believing that he is innocent."

She said Van der Sloot didn’t even know whether her daughter was alive or not.

"Natalee never even had the chance for a medical doctor or a coroner, anyone, to determine" if she was alive , Twitty said.