Joran Van der Sloot, the prime suspect in 2005 disappearance of Natalee Holloway, was stabbed and seriously injured at a Peruvian maximum prison, according to reports. However, Peruvian authorities denied the reports.

Van der Sloot was a key suspect in the highly followed disappearance of Alabama teenager Natalee Holloway in Aruba. He was arrested twice in the May 2005 case following the disappearance of the 16-year-old Holloway while on a class outing.

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Holloway's last sighting was leaving a bar with Van der Sloot. Her body never has been located. Van der Sloot also was charged in the U.S. on suspicion of trying to extort $250,000 from Beth Holloway, Natalee's mother, in 2010.

Van der Sloot, 27, was in the Peruvian prison under a 28-year sentence for murdering Peruvian business student Stephany Flores. They met at a casino before going to his hotel room. He fled with her money and credit cards, but was tracked down by authorities.

Leidy Figureoa, a 25-year-old Peruvian who married Van der Sloot in prison last July, said he almost was killed by a brutal attack by fellow inmates. She said he lost a lot of blood and wasn't being treated properly by prison officials, so she worried for his life.

Figueroa made her charges on Dutch TV, saying fellow inmates stabbed Van der Sloot in the waist and stomach multiple times. She held up a bloody shirt she said was his.

The motive for the attack, according to Figueroa, was to publicize the horrible conditions of the prison by killing its most high-profile inmate. The prison is a maximum-security facility 16,000 feet up in the Andes Mountains near Peru's border with Chile and Bolivia.

Peruvian authorities transferred Van der Sloot to the facility from a medium-security prison near Lima. They said he threatened the warden when guards took away his mobile phone. Van der Sloot said he was "set up" by authorities.

Coincidentally, Van der Sloot wrote a rambling letter just before the incident blasting prison officials, that was sent to a British tabloid. The letter accused prison officials of violating "every one" of his human rights. Van der Sloot wrote the prison tortured inmates and didn't fulfill the mission of "reintegrating offenders into society."

Prison officials vigorously denied Van der Sloot was stabbed. The head of Peru's National Penitentiary Institute, Jose Luis Perez Guadalupe said Figueroa was a "compulsive liar," adding nothing happened, it's "not the first time in recent weeks that she give false information to the press," he said.

TagsJoran Van der Sloot, crime, Murder, natalie holloway, aruba, peru, disappearance, Murder, police