A NINE-YEAR-OLD boy called Mitja is smiling innocently at the passenger next to him … unaware that he is a sexual predator who will rape him and take his life within hours of this photograph being taken.

Mitja's body was found dumped in an allotment garden in the German city of Leipzig. He had been raped and strangled.

Police in Germany have called in the help of Interpol in neighbouring countries to search for his killer, 42-year-old Uwe Kolbig, a convicted sex offender whose picture caught on the security camera of the tram perfectly matches that of his police mug shots.