A Dutch national has spent 11 years in a Spanish jail for rapes he did not commit, Spanish newspaper El Pais reported on Sunday.

Romano van der Dussen was jailed for 15 years for three violent attempted rapes in the resort of Fuengirola. However, British police have now confirmed the dna of the rapist matches that of a British man who has since been jailed for murder, the paper says.

RTL news reported last year that Van der Dussen may have been mistaken for a British serial rapist.

The dna comes from a British national named Mark Philip Dixie who is now serving 34 years in jail for murder and has admitted he could also be the rapist, El Pais said.

Nevertheless, Van der Dussen remains in jail on the island of Mallorca because of delays in bringing his case to the Spanish appeal court.

Ruined

Van der Dussen was not brought back to the Netherlands to serve his sentence because ‘he lived in Spain at the time of his arrest’, RTL quoted the Dutch foreign affairs ministry as saying last year.

He told El Pais that his life in the Spanish jail was hell. ‘My life has been ruined,’ he told the paper.

Van Dussen was jailed on the basis of evidence from two of the victims who said he was their attacker, even though dna evidence did not match.