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Aruban judge questioned in missing teen case

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Judge Paul Van Der Sloot was questioned Saturday night in the probe of the missing Alabama teen.

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Natalee Holloway

ORANJESTAD, Aruba (CNN) -- Nearly three weeks after Alabama teenager Natalee Holloway disappeared in Aruba, police there questioned a local judge whose son is a suspect in the case, a law enforcement source close to the investigation said.

Authorities talked to Judge Paul Van Der Sloot on Saturday night, the source said. The jurist is the father of 17-year-old Joran Van Der Sloot, one of four people held in the case -- none of whom have been charged.

The source said the judge was interviewed as a witness.

On Friday, Judge Bob Wit ruled that Paul Van Der Sloot cannot visit his son in jail, but that the boy's mother may. Wit's reasoning wasn't made public. Anita Van Der Sloot visited her son late Friday.

Defense attorneys for Joran Van Der Sloot and two others in custody have said their clients maintain they are innocent.

Also jailed are Deepak Kalpoe, 21, and his brother Satish, 18, and a man identified by a family member as Steve Croes, 26, a disc jockey for a popular party boat, who was arrested Friday.

Police Commissioner Jan Van Der Straten said the arrest came after one of the three jailed youths named a fourth person in the case.

Joran Van Der Sloot and the Kalpoe brothers were last seen with Holloway leaving a nightclub about 1:30 a.m. on May 30, police said.

The party boat that employs Croes docks near the Holiday Inn where Holloway was staying.

Croes' uncle Rufo Solognier, a retired police officer, described his nephew as a quiet divorced man with a 2-year-old son. Solognier said he did not know of any connection between Croes and the three others.

Prosecutors asked a judge Friday to hold Van Der Sloot and the Kalpoes another eight days.

Under Aruban law, prosecutors can ask judges to approve three eight-day extensions, followed by a 60-day extension and then a 30-day one.

Suspects may be held up to 116 days -- and in rare cases even longer -- before formal charges are filed, said Mariaine Croes, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor.

Authorities have found no sign of the Alabama teenager despite a massive hunt of the Caribbean island off Venezuela.

Holloway, an 18-year-old honors student from the affluent Birmingham, Alabama, suburb of Mountain Brook, was in Aruba with about 100 classmates to celebrate high school graduation.

Her mother, Beth Holloway Twitty, who traveled to Aruba to search for her daughter, expressed frustration Friday at the pace of the investigation.

"I will find Natalee," Twitty vowed.

Last week, authorities released two security guards who were arrested in connection with Holloway's disappearance.

The guards, Abraham Jones, 28, and Mickey John, 30, were arrested June 5 but weren't charged.

After his release, John said one of the remaining suspects confided to him while they were in jail together that he had lied to police. (CNN Access)

CNN's Karl Penhaul contributed to this report.

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