Aruba judge orders release of Kalpoe brothers

updated 4:27 p.m. ET Sept. 2, 2005

ORANJESTAD, Aruba - A judge on Friday ordered the conditional release of two Surinamese brothers held in the disappearance of an Alabama teenager, their lawyers said. The two will be freed Saturday along with another suspect.

The judge ruled that Deepak, 18, and Satish Kalpoe, 21, could go free on condition that they not leave Aruba and remain available to police, said attorneys Ruud Oomen and David Kock.

The court on Thursday had ordered Dutch teenager Joran van der Sloot to be released under the same conditions imposed on the Kalpoes, who are Surinamese nationals.

Van der Sloot, 18, and the Kalpoes were arrested June 9. The brothers were released July 4 but were re-arrested last week. All three have denied any involvement in Holloway’s disappearance.

Although the judge had ordered the brothers held for another eight days Thursday, he agreed Friday to suspend his decision because the brothers had made no attempt to evade justice the first time they were released, Oomen said.

“Since the brothers were free for almost two months and made no attempt to evade justice and submitted themselves to any court proceedings, there is no need at this moment to keep them detained,” Oomen told The Associated Press.

“My clients will fully cooperate with the investigation,” he added. “They maintain their innocence very, very emphatically.”

Beth Holloway Twitty, the missing Alabama teenager’s mother, said she was dismayed by the move.

Twitty: ‘I’m devastated’
“I’m devastated,” she said, adding she would not comment further until the three suspects were released.

Attempts to reach prosecutors for comment were unsuccessful.

Holloway, 18, was last seen May 30, leaving a bar with van der Sloot and the Kalpoes hours before she was to catch a flight home from a vacation to celebrate her high school graduation.

Van der Sloot has admitted to being alone with the young woman on a beach the night she vanished. He has said he left there alone and did not harm her.

Numerous searches throughout the Dutch Caribbean territory have produced no trace of Holloway.

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