The Austrian Joseph Fritzlsentenced in 2009 to life in prison for kidnapping and raping his daughter for 24 years, received Thursday allowed to leave the maximum security area where he was imprisoned.
He will thus leave the center for criminals with mental problems where he has been hospitalized for 15 years and will continue to serve his sentence in a regular prison, a benefit that his defense considers as a step towards parole.
“The Court concluded thus “It’s no longer a danger” his lawyer Astrid Wagner told the press after a closed hearing in the city of Krems where he is imprisoned, 80 km north-west of Vienna.
The judges based themselves on a psychiatric report which cited his advanced age (he will turn 89 in April) and the onset of dementia, the lawyer explained. This transfer was authorized on the condition that the convicted subject regularly underwent therapy and underwent psychiatric evaluations.
So Josef Fritzl entered the hearing before the court. “It is an important first step. He must now be placed in a classical detention regime and subjected to regular examinations,” he added. Once the transfer is made, he could apply for parole, according to the lawyer, who plans to do so next year.
A court spokesperson confirmed this decision, which can be appealed by the prosecutor’s office.
Convicted in March 2009, this electrician had been arrested a year earlier after one of the seven children born from the incestuous relationship which he maintained with his daughter Elisabetta.
The young woman was kidnapped and raped by her own father between 1984 and 2008 in a kind of bunker set up in the basement of the family property in Amstetten, a small town 100 km from Vienna.
During all these years Fritzl continued to live on the upper floors with his wife Rosemarie and his other six children who, the judges concluded, never knew anything about it and were convinced that the young woman had joined a sect.
The authorities compiled the “basement of horror” with cement in 2013, an essential requirement for putting the house up for sale.
Elisabeth Fritzl, now 56, and her children have moved to a secret location under a new name to try to rebuild their lives in anonymity.
Josef Fritzl, who threatened to gas the entire family if one of the members escaped, never expressed remorse some even though, according to his lawyer, he “thinks about his actions day and night.”
During the process, the “Monster of Amstetten” He said his daughter’s rape became an addiction and psychological experts later described him as a person without any empathy towards his victims.
Source: Clarin
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