Dutch and Aruban investigators on Saturday went to the house of two brothers who were one-time suspects in the disappearance of U.S. teenager Natalee Holloway, the Aruban prosecutors’ office said.
The investigators conducted what they termed an “inspection” of the property where Surinamese brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpoe live with their parents, according to Vivian van der Biezen, a spokeswoman for the public prosecutors’ office.
A statement from the Aruban prosecutor’s office said: “An inspection is a coercive measure aimed at observing or analyzing a specific place or circumstances under which a criminal offense may have been committed, or to establish facts related to a criminal case.”
The Kalpoe brothers were in the family’s home in Hooiberg, east of the Dutch Caribbean island’s capital of Oranjestad, when investigators arrived Saturday morning. The siblings objected to the action and had to be escorted from the property by police officers, she said.
“The brothers were not arrested,” van der Biezen told The Associated Press, adding that the inspection lasted for about an hour. She could not say what investigators were looking for.
Nothing was seized from the home, according to the statement, and no further details were disclosed.
The inspection of the Kalpoe home came more than two weeks after investigators from the Netherlands dug up earth for two days outside the home of former suspect Joran van der Sloot, reviving a case that had seemed to grow cold since the U.S. teen vanished during a school trip to Aruba about two years ago.
Paulus van der Sloot, Joran’s father, told a Dutch television program that investigators seized diary notes and letters from him and his wife, as well as a personal computer that was returned later. He felt his privacy had been invaded.
Holloway, an 18-year-old from Mountain Brook, Alabama, vanished in the early hours of May 30, 2005, the last day of a five-day vacation to celebrate her high school graduation with 124 other students.
She was seen leaving a bar with Joran van der Sloot and the Kalpoe brothers. The brothers were jailed and later released after a judge ruled there was not enough evidence to hold them.
Van der Sloot, a Dutch citizen who has been attending college in the Netherlands, was also jailed and released. He has said he left Holloway alone on a beach after they kissed and he did not harm her.
At least 10 people have been arrested and released without charges. Hundreds more have been questioned.
The Dutch marines, the local coast guard, the FBI, hundreds of volunteers and others have scoured the island’s dunes, beaches and trash dumps for Holloway. Scuba divers and sonar-equipped coast guard ships have also examined the seabed in the unsolved disappearance.