ORANJESTAD, Aruba - Aruban prosecutors said Thursday authorities are investigating new information in the Natalee Holloway case provided by a Dutch crime reporter.
Information from reporter Peter de Vries "may help considerably'' in resolving what happened to the American, who vanished during a May 2005 school vacation on the Dutch Caribbean island, the prosecutor's office said in a statement.
The statement did not specify the new material but said it "may shed a new light on the mode'' in which Holloway died and the "method by which her body disappeared.''
A lawyer for Joran van der Sloot, a Dutchman who was a suspect in the case, said it was irresponsible for prosecutors to make the announcement without describing their evidence.
"They act quite frankly like clowns,'' said Joseph Tacopina, a New York lawyer.
"If they have a resolution, they should bring a case and stop talking about cryptic information.''
De Vries, who appeared late Thursday as a guest on a Dutch TV show, said he used a hidden camera in Aruba and the Netherlands to obtain images "that have proved to be very important.''
In a brief clip shown during the Pauw & Witteman news show, Holloway's mother, Beth Twitty, says: "Look what they have done. Look what they have done to Natalee.''
It was not clear what she was reacting to.
De Vries's website said the information was gathered through "an ingenious hidden-camera tactic'' and will be revealed in a Dutch television program Sunday. It said the reporter travelled to Aruba last week to inform authorities of his findings.
"The mystery of Natalee Holloway will be solved Sunday,'' de Vries said on the Dutch television show RTL Boulevard, which showed him meeting Twitty at an Amsterdam airport.
"It was a big operation that we worked on for months.''
De Vries had a testy exchange two weeks ago during a televised interview in the Netherlands with van der Sloot.
Van der Sloot, who was among the last people seen with the missing American, threw wine at de Vries after the reporter challenged his credibility.
Prosecutors dismissed their case against van der Sloot and two other suspects in December, saying they lacked evidence to charge them or even to prove a crime was committed. Authorities have said the case could be reopened if new evidence surfaces.
Holloway, of Mountain Brook, Ala., disappeared the final night of her high school graduation trip to Aruba. She was 18 at the time.
She was last seen in public leaving a bar with van der Sloot and two Surinamese brothers -- Deepak and Satish Kalpoe hours before she was due to board a flight home. The three men have been repeatedly detained as suspects but denied any wrongdoing.
