And in order to charge someone with being an accessory, you've got to be able to prove that a crime occurred. They couldn't charge anyone with being an accessory to Natalee's murder unless they had enough evidence to charge whoever killed her with murder.

The difficulty in charging anyone with an accessory to anything in connection with Natalee's disappearance is that first you have to have evidence of the primary crime. If someone killed her (huge "if" in my book), and they had evidence of that, they'd just charge the murderer. As I said, I don't know anything about Aruban law when it comes to being charged as an accessory, but if Joran had left Natalee alone on a beach in the U.S. and gone home as he says he did, and some unknown stranger came upon her, say sleeping on the beach, abducted her and murdered her, Joran could not be charged with anything. The fact that he was the one who took her to the place where she wound up being killed and left her there would not be enough to make him an accessory.

(1) Thank God it isn't possible to charge anyone with "unspecified criminal acts. If Joran or anyone else is charged it must be with a specific crime, and moreover, they have to have evidence of it.

(2) ALE didn't give Joran 10 days to heal any possible scratches or bruises (as some have said). He was questioned and released within a day or two of Natalee's murder. Moreover, he had already gone back to the Holiday Inn with the police on the night of May 31-June 1. Presumably, the police should have noted any scratches or bruises at that time. I have never heard anything that makes me think the scratched or bruised story was anything other than an internet rumor anyway. Greta van Susteren said on her show that she had been told that ONE student at Joran's school reported that he thought he had seen a mark on Joran's face in the days after Natalee's disappearance became known, but she was careful to say that this young man, whoever he was, was someone who had had disputes with Joran in the past.

Of course, if you have a live victim who is alleging rape she could give any number of reasons that she left a bar in the middle of the night with a man she didn't know, but it would be her word against his, and sometimes actions speak louder than words.

(3) "It appears that Natalee was the one with the drugs" is NOT an overstatement in view of what is publicly known. There is a whole lot more evidence that Natalee was the one with the drugs than there is that Joran committed "criminal acts" against her. Testimonial evidence is evidence, and it is my understanding that under Dutch/Aruban law, a signed, sworn statement is admissible in court, even if the person who made it is not available to testify. (We would have to produce a witness to testify as to the authenticity of the statement and make them available for cross-examination; they don't cross-examine witnesses.)

According to Gerold Dompig and Peter de Vries, who also says he saw them, there are "statements" (plural) from witnesses, saying that Natalee was seen with drugs on Aruba. To the best of my knowledge, there is no one who has made a signed statement saying that Joran committed any crime against her.