Published25. January 2024, 10:56
Austria: Josef Fritzl transferred out of high security unit
In prison for 15 years, the 88-year-old incestuous torturer will be placed in a traditional detention regime, before being able to request his conditional release.
The Austrian Josef Fritzl, sentenced to life imprisonment for having kidnapped and raped his daughter for 24 years, obtained Thursday the right to leave the high security unit where he is detained, according to a court decision handed down Thursday. “The court has come to the conclusion that he no longer poses a danger” after 15 years behind bars, his lawyer Astrid Wagner told the press after a closed-door hearing in the town of Krems. , 80 km northwest of Vienna, where he is incarcerated. The judges based themselves on a psychiatric expert report, she explained, citing her advanced age (88 years) and the onset of dementia.
“This is an important first step. He must now be placed in a traditional detention regime and undergo regular examinations,” added the lawyer, specifying that her client was “very moved”. Once his transfer is effective, he will then be able to file a request for parole, according to Mr. Wagner, who plans to do this next year. A court spokesperson confirmed this decision, which can still be contested by the prosecution.
Incestuous relationship with his daughter
The detainee arrived in a police vehicle which drove into a garage at the rear of the building, photographers sneaking a glimpse of his face hidden behind his hands. Convicted in March 2009, this electrician was arrested a year earlier, following the hospitalization of one of the seven children born from the incestuous relationship he had with his daughter Elisabeth Fritzl. The latter was kidnapped and raped from 1984 to 2008 in a cellar-bunker set up in the basement of the family property in Amstetten. During all these years, Josef Fritzl continued to live in the pavilion with his wife, Rosemarie, whom the judges concluded had never known anything, convinced that her daughter had joined a cult.
No remorse
In the small town 100 km from Vienna where the tragedy took place, the authorities blocked up “the cellar of horror” in 2013 with concrete, a necessary condition for the house to be put up for sale. Now aged 56, Elisabeth Fritzl and her children have moved to an undisclosed location, under a new name, in an attempt to rebuild their lives in anonymity. Josef Fritzl, who threatened to gas the entire family if any of its members escaped, never expressed any remorse. According to his lawyer, however, “he thinks about his actions day and night.”