Appeals panel considers van der Sloot's confession

(CNN) -- A panel of Peruvian judges is considering whether to uphold the confession of Joran van der Sloot, who is accused of killing a 21-year-old woman.

The three-judge appellate panel is expected to hand down a decision in about a week.

"We believe we did a good job demonstrating that there wasn't an official translator and that his attorney (at the time of the confession) did not have a document accrediting her as his attorney," van der Sloot's attorney, Maximo Altez Navarro, told In Session on Friday.

Van der Sloot is jailed pending trial on charges of first-degree murder and robbery in the May 30 death in of Stefany Flores, a 21-year-old student.

The 22-year-old Dutch citizen, who claims in court documents that his incarceration and confession were illegal, sued attorney Luz Marina Romero Chinchay in July. Van der Sloot says Romero was imposed on him and that she became involved because she was in a relationship with a police officer, said Altez.

Romero has denied those allegations.

In June, a superior court judge in Lima, Peru, upheld the confession and incarceration of van der Sloot. Judge Wilder Casique Alvizuri declared as "unfounded" van der Sloot's habeas corpus claim that his constitutional rights were violated at the time of the confession because he was represented by a state-appointed attorney.

Van der Sloot also claimed his laptop had been improperly searched.

In an official press release, the judge said the suspect had a translator made available to him during the three depositions he gave the police and that his laptop was sealed once delivered to the court.

Separately, van der Sloot remains a suspect in the 2005 disappearance of Alabama teen Natalee Holloway in Aruba in 2005, though he has not been charged in that case.

In Session's Mayra Cuevas contributed to this report.