In a statement posted online, Alfano announced that law enforcement agencies and the judiciary “have identified the killer of Yara Gambirasio”.

“According to what was revealed from the genetic profile in the possession of investigators, the killer of the young Yara is a person from the [same] place, the province of Bergamo.”

“We thank everyone, each for their role, for the maximum commitment, the highest professionality and the passion invested in the difficult search for this killer,” the interior minister said.

Thirteen-year-old Gambirasio went missing in November 2010 after leaving a gym class in the northern Lombardy region. Her body, which was not found for three months, had multiple stab wounds. She was found 10km away from where she went missing.

Police launched a large-scale operation to find the girl’s killer, collecting 14,000 DNA samples.

But it was not until last year that there was a breakthrough, when investigators exhumed the body of a truck driver who died a decade ago. They were searching for a match for DNA found on Gambirasio’s clothing, believed to be the illegitimate son of the truck driver.

While the interior minister did not announce the identity of the arrested man, he was identified by Italian media as Massimo Giuseppe Bossetti. The 44-year-old construction worker, married with three children, is from the same province where the murder took place, Rai News said.

A further twist in the case came last summer, when a note confessing to the crime was written in a church visitors’ book. Just days later, a letter was found under the doormat of a hospital chapel, confessing to the crime, which was followed by a phone call to the hospital’s reception.

READ MORE: Child killer ‘confesses’ in church book