So did the FBI fund the murder of a young Peruvian woman?
Crimesider spoke to ex-FBI homicide detective Paul Lindsay who says it's not as simple as that.
The problem, according to Lindsay, begins with good intentions and ends with jurisdictional limitations, mainly that the FBI has no jurisdiction run investigative operations in foreign countries.
Lindsay says FBI investigators probably thought that if they could get van der Sloot in a room with the alleged extortion money and get him to tell them the location of Natalee Holloway's body, that knowledge would be the same as a confession, and then Aruban authorities would be able to swoop in and arrest van der Sloot for murder.
That's because, Lindsay says, that's what they do in the US.
Lindsay says that the FBI formula for extortion stings is, "set 'em up, pay 'em off, get 'em to talk, never let them leave the room without handcuffs on."
It's that last step that has the FBI in hot water; they let van der Sloot leave the room. But, according to Lindsay, the FBI didn't have the power to stop him.
Lindsay believes that, because the Aruban police were calling the shots and the FBI was forced into the passenger seat by jurisdictional limitations, and because the Aruban police had already been burned by van der Sloot's "confessions" in the Holloway case more than once, those same police went the "trust but verify" route.
"They probably wanted to check [van der Sloot's] story" before arresting him and taking the chance of getting embarrassed by another false lead provided by a notoriously misleading suspect, Lindsay says.
But another important reason why Lindsay says the buck doesn't stop at the FBI's door lies in the payoff itself.
The FBI says it didn't provide the funds that were wired to van der Sloot's account - that the money came from "private funds." But Lindsay tells Crimesider that no matter where the money came from, the FBI can't legally be held responsible for how it was used.
He says the Bureau is no more responsible for Stephany Flores' murder than "you would be if your carburetor broke down and the guy you paid to fix it uses that money to buy a gun and kill somebody."
Lindsay said it's hard to know what went wrong with the investigation but he believes that the Birmingham-based FBI agents truly wanted to solve Natalee's case and bring justice to her family, even if they had to settle for "OJ justice" and bust van der Sloot for the lesser crime they could prove, rather than the greater crime they couldn't.
Courtesy of: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20007505-504083.html
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