The 21-year-old man under investigation for killing several nursing home patients with overdoses of insulin, has reportedly confessed to three of the crimes.

In two cases, Rahiied A confessed to deliberately injecting elderly patients with insulin and in one case he said he had given the injection by mistake, the public prosecution department said.

However, his lawyer Robbert van Haneghem says the ‘emotional state’ of his client means the confessions is dubious, news agency ANP reported on Tuesday.

Van Haneghem was speaking in court during a procedural hearing in the case, in which A is said to have committed seven murders and eight attempted murders.

According to the public prosecution department, they took place at three different nursing homes between January 2016 and November 2017 when he was arrested.

Van Haneghem told the court he will go into detail later about why his client’s confession to one murder and two attempted murders should not be taken seriously.

In addition, causes of death still need to be established, the lawyer said. The bodies of three of the alleged victims have been exhumed and still need to be tested to find out how they died.

The public prosecution department told the court it will need until the summer to complete the investigation.