Suspect 'confesses' to Germany murder after Iraq arrest

A failed Iraqi asylum seeker has admitted murdering a teenage girl in Germany after being arrested back in his homeland, authorities in Iraq's Kurdistan region said on Saturday.

He was detained early Friday in northern Iraq following an outcry in Germany after police hunting the fugitive admitted he had fled with his family.

"During interrogation following his arrest, the young man originally from Kurdistan confessed to killing the German girl," said Tariq Ahmad, police chief for the Dohuk area of Iraqi Kurdistan.

"He said that the two of them were friends but that they had a dispute, and that he killed her when the girl threatened to call the police," Ahmad said.