Report: Van Der Sloot Says He Lied About Holloway

Feb. 1, 2008 — -- Dutch student Joran van der Sloot now says he was lying when he told someone privately that he'd played a role in the mysterious disappearance of Natalee Holloway.

Van der Sloot spoke out after Dutch journalist Peter R. de Vries claimed that through his private investigation he had solved the Holloway case and that he knows the American teenager is dead.

De Vries said he used a sophisticated network of hidden cameras in what he called an "undercover operation" to obtain evidence that he says "has solved the mystery" of Holloway's disappearance on May 30, 2005.

ABC News has obtained exclusive U.S. rights to this stunning new information caught on tape and will air a 90-minute special edition of "20/20: The Final Hours of Natalee Holloway" Monday at 9:30 p.m. ET, as well as special coverage of the case on "Good Morning America" on Monday.

De Vries' hidden cameras caught Dutch student van der Sloot saying that Holloway died after having sex with him and that he then dumped her body at sea with the help of a friend.

But in a new development, van der Sloot now says that he was lying when he privately told an acquaintance that he was involved in Holloway's disappearance.

"It is true I told someone. Everybody will see it Sunday," Van der Sloot said on the Dutch television show "Pauw & Witteman," according to The Associated Press.

"That is what he wanted to hear, so I told him what he wanted to hear," Van der Sloot said, adding that he never fully trusted the man to whom he'd confessed.

"It is so stupid, it is so stupid, it is really stupid," Van der Sloot said, his voice cracking, the AP reported.

Based on de Vries evidence, the chief prosecutor in Aruba announced Thursday that he is reopening the case.

De Vries also showed his findings to Holloway's mother, Beth Twitty.

"She told me she kind of knew it already that Natalee wasn't alive anymore, but when you get this message it's still, yeah, a kind of relief," de Vries told ABC News.