Alleged German killer of refugee boy admits second child murder: police

A German man suspected of kidnapping and killing a four-year-old Bosnian refugee has admitted to murdering another child, police said.

"The man confessed overnight that he had also killed Elias," said Berlin police spokesman Stefan Redlich, referring to a six-year-old German boy who has been missing since July.

Following the confession, Elias' body was found in a garden allotment, sources said.

Both children were victims of sex crimes, German news agency DPA said without citing its sources.

The man was arrested Thursday after his mother told police that he may have been involved in the kidnapping of the Bosnian boy, Mohamed.

Police also found in the suspect's car the body of a child which was packed in cat litter and which appeared to have been dead for some time.

Prosecutors had on Thursday said the body, which was undergoing an autopsy, was likely to be that of Mohamed.

The boy had been missing since October 1, when his mother took him and his sisters to Berlin's main refugee registration centre known as Lageso which receives hundreds of asylum seekers daily.

The family has been living in Germany for more than a year and the mother had gone to the registration centre that day to obtain her social allowances, according to local media.

Police subsequently issued CCTV footage of a bearded man leading a child away who was holding a stuffed toy.

"Mohamed was already dead on October 2, the day after his kidnapping," police spokesman Redlich said, adding that the suspect had admitted to that during interrogation.

As Germany gears up to receive up to one million asylum seekers this year, Berlin's Lageso has seen lengthy queues of migrants waiting to be registered and often chaotic scenes.

Fights have broken out at the centre among migrants frustrated by the long waits and a lack of information filtering down from authorities.