The man suspected of killing 11-year-old Nicky Verstappen 20 years ago and arrested after new techniques gave a dna match, has not confessed to the crime, his lawyer told judges in Maastricht on Monday.

‘If he had made a confession, we would be having a completely different conversation,’ lawyer Gerald Roethof told a remand hearing on Thursday. Roethof told the court that the public prosecution department does not have sufficient evidence to convict his client.

Roethof told RTL Nieuws earlier this week that the dna evidence against Brech is weak. ‘We have to be very careful about the dna and drawing conclusions based on it,’ he said.

As well as Brech’s dna, traces from five other people were also found on the boy and there is no blood or sperm link, Roethof said.

Brech was arrested in Spain at the end of last month. He was identified via a mass dna testing, launching a Europe-wide hunt.

Nicky Verstappen was murdered on a campsite in Limburg in July 1998.