PERU: Prominent businessman and former presidential candidate Ricardo Flores holds memorial mass for his daughter one month after her murder

Record ID: 258888

  • Title: PERU: Prominent businessman and former presidential candidate Ricardo Flores holds memorial mass for his daughter one month after her murder
  • Date: 2nd July 2010
  • Summary: FLORES EMBRACING PEOPLE FAMILY MEMBERS AND FRIENDS LEAVING
  • Embargoed: 17th July 2010 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Peru
  • Country: Peru
  • Reuters ID: LVA15NXGPT0DR7VNPWQ90I40JQ1D
  • Story Text: A memorial service was held in Lima on Wednesday (June 30) for Stephany Flores, the Peruvian woman allegedly murdered by Dutchman Joran van der Sloot.
    Family, friends and neighbours came together to mourn the loss of Flores, a 21-year-old business student, who was murdered in a Lima hotel room on May 30.
    Ahead of the memorial service, Flores father, Ricardo Flores, told journalists outside the Attorney General's office in Lima that he was just now starting to feel the loss of his beloved daughter.
    "It is just now that I am feeling the loss of my daughter. Yesterday was a very difficult day for me. I don't know, I think that it's just me that started feeling the loss. My wife has felt it since the first day and I think that it's my turn now," Flores told reporters.
    Van der Sloot, who has been held in a Lima jail since June 11, is also the key suspect in the 2005 disappearance of Natalee Holloway, an 18-year-old American from Alabama who vanished during a high school graduation trip to the Dutch Caribbean island of Aruba in 2005.
    He has been arrested twice in the case but never charged after giving different stories about the American woman's disappearance.
    When asked about that case, Flores said he has not been in contact with the Holloway family.
    "I have cut off all contact because I think that this is now in the judicial process, I don't want to interfere with anything, I want this to continue on its regular course," Flores said.
    Family members were hoping for closure following Flores' death even as the high profile criminal court case is underway.
    "We want to have a bit of peace so we can carry out our day to day lives with warmth and love for my daughter," he said. "I know that it is not easy but we are trying to live with her spirit, I know that I won't have her physical state ever again but I will always have my daughter here, her spirit, by our side."
    Police said Van der Sloot, a poker aficionado, met Flores at a casino in Lima and then took her to his hotel room in the Miraflores district, where her body was found.
    Van der Sloot had confessed to killing Flores but later asked a judge to disregard the confession under protection of habeas corpus. The judge denied the filing.
    According to police, Flores was killed on May 30 -- five years to the day after Holloway disappeared.
    If convicted, Van der Sloot could be sentenced to up to 35 years in jail.
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