A convicted Dutch rapist is under house arrest in Bulgaria after being accused of raping a 32-year-old woman in Sofia on Christmas Day, according to local media.

Johan Stellingwerf, 38, is said to have met the woman at a local bar and taken her back to his home. There he gave her a ‘strange tasting drink’, raped her and dumped her on the streets, website Dir.bg reported.

In 2007, Johan Stellingwerf was jailed in the Netherlands on two counts of rape and three of attempted rape after being deported from Brazil where he had gone into hiding.

In 2010, the sentence was cut to five years, eight months after appeal court judges said there was not enough evidence he had drugged his victims with valium and chloroform. Three of the charges were also dismissed.

Released from jail, in 2014 he is also suspected of carrying out rapes in Malta and Spain and may have also struck in Poland.

Bulgarian news website Lupa.bg said it had been told by police investigators that three other women had come forward to say they had been attacked by the Dutchman.