Aruba ends missing US girl probe

No trace of Natalee Holloway has been found since her disappearance

Authorities in Aruba have closed their investigation into the 2005 disappearance of 18-year-old US girl Natalee Holloway, prosecutors say.

Three suspects who were re-arrested and questioned last month have been notified that they will not be charged.

Natalee Holloway vanished hours before she was due to leave Aruba in 2005.

Her body has never been found and a search at the time of her disappearance by hundreds of police, soldiers and local volunteers found no sign of her.

Dutch citizen Joran van der Sloot and brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpoe, from the former Dutch colony of Surinam, were all held as suspects in the case in 2005, but were released because of lack of evidence.

The three men acknowledged that they were with Natalee on the night she disappeared.

They said they gave her a lift but denied any wrongdoing.

'New evidence'

Police in the Dutch protectorate announced in November that they had found "new incriminating evidence", but gave no details.

They then ordered the arrest of Mr van der Sloot and the Kalpoe brothers on suspicion of involvement in voluntary manslaughter and causing serious bodily harm that resulted in Ms Holloway's death.

But all three men were released last week without charge.

The case could be reopened "if new serious evidence were to be found," prosecutors say.

Ms Holloway, from Alabama, disappeared in the early hours of 30 May 2005 on the last evening of a five-day holiday to celebrate her high-school graduation.

Despite extensive searches by police, volunteers, and Dutch F-16 jets fitted with search equipment, no trace of her body was ever found.