Peru police seek Dutchman linked to Aruba mystery

LIMA (Reuters) - A Dutch citizen who was arrested twice over the disappearance of an American student in Aruba in 2005 is the prime suspect in a new homicide investigation in Peru, police said on Wednesday.

Joran Van der Sloot was questioned after student Natalee Holloway went missing during a high school graduation trip in the Dutch Caribbean island five years ago, a case that attracted heavy media attention in the United States. He was not charged due to insufficient evidence.

Now he is wanted in Peru in connection with the murder of 21-year-old Stephany Flores, a Peruvian woman found dead on the floor of a hotel room in Lima on Monday.

"Homicide personnel are convinced, due to the incriminating evidence we've found, that this Dutch citizen is the person responsible for killing Stephany Flores," said Cesar Guardia, head of the Peruvian police crimes unit.

Her father, Ricardo Flores, is a well-known Peruvian businessman and when his daughter disappeared over the weekend he told reporters he feared she had been kidnapped.

"My daughter was stabbed. I think there was some kind of fight. The autopsy will determine that," Ricardo Flores told reporters.

Guardia told local radio Van der Sloot, who is in his early 20s, had left Peru headed for neighboring Chile. "We have information that he's in Chile (and) we'll make use of international treaties to catch him," he said.

The investigator said that Van der Sloot arrived in Peru on May 14 from Colombia and that he and the victim were seen at a casino in Lima over the weekend.

"We've information that both liked playing poker and presumably that's how they met," said the policeman.

No one was formally charged over the disappearance of Holloway, 18, but Van der Sloot and two other young men admitted they saw her the night she vanished at a nightclub in Aruba.

(Additional reporting by Marco Aquino and Teresa Cespedes; Editing by Fiona Ortiz and Eric Walsh)