The Guardian, UK: A suspect in the murder of an 11-year-old Dutch schoolboy 20 years ago has been arrested in Spain after a Europe-wide manhunt triggered by the Netherlands’ largest ever DNA testing programme.
Jos Brech, a former scout leader and playgroup worker, was detained on Sunday afternoon, police in southern Limburg province said, adding that the 55-year-old “was taken into custody and will be returned to the Netherlands”. Dutch authorities placed Brech on Europol’s list of the continent’s most wanted fugitives last week after announcing significant evidence that they said amounted to a important breakthrough in the case.
Investigators said advanced analysis had revealed Brech’s DNA was a “perfect one-for-one match” with traces found on the body of Nicky Verstappen, who was reported missing from a summer camp near the German border on 10 August 1998.
De Telegraaf newspaper posted a video of Spanish police arresting Brech near “a kind of commune” outside the village of Castellterçol, about 30 miles north of Barcelona, reportedly while he was out collecting firewood. The paper said it had been called on Saturday by a Dutch national visiting the isolated, wooded area who had recognised Brech from police photographs.
“The witness had spoken to Brech on several occasions and had specific information,” Telegraaf crime reporter Marcel Vink told the Dutch national broadcaster NOS. “He wanted to do his civic duty, and had details I could reasonably check.”
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