Serial killer questioned in Almeria

ETIENNE DEDROOG, a Belgian, denied killing an elderly man in Nijar on November 16 in 2011.

A month earlier in France, he had murdered an elderly woman whom he had also robbed.

Dedroog was speaking from the Belgian prison of Lantin where he is serving a life sentence for a double murder.

Questioned by an Almeria judge via videolink he admitted that he was in the province in November 2011 but had no involvement in the Nijar death.

He insisted that he had not robbed the victim or taken his car which was found four months later in La Jonquera (Girona) and bore traces of his DNA.

He had hitchhiked to the French border Dedroog, said, claiming via an interpreter that this would explain the presence of his DNA.

Investigators found that he stayed in a Benidorm hotel on the night of November 16, arriving in Valencia on November 17 and Huesca on November 25.

He reached Belgium on November 28 where he killed an elderly couple but gave himself up when he realised that the police were closing in.