Using both the Austrian sample and the serviette DNA, Mulders claims the link between the two men was “irrefutable”, adding: “the Y-chromosome was identical.”

But the particular form of the DNA they found, Haplopgroup E1b1b (Y-DNA) is rare in Germany and western Europe.

He said: “It is most commonly found in the Berbers of Morocco, in Algeria, Libya and Tunisia as well as among Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews.”