SANKT POELTEN, Austria (AFP) - - A jury ordered Josef
Fritzl detained for life Thursday for imprisoning his daughter as a
sex slave in his cellar during a 24-year orgy of depravity in which
he fathered seven children.
The court in the Austrian town of Sankt Poelten said Fritzl
would have to spend the rest of his life interned in a mental
institute after a psychiatrist warned that the married 73-year-old
felt "born to rape."
If at a later stage doctors found Fritzl cured, he would have to
serve the rest of his sentence behind prison bars.
The jury found him unanimously guilty of murdering one of the
seven children through negligence, as well as all other charges of
rape, incest and sequestration in the basement of the family house
in Amstetten.
Fritzl at first denied murder and enslavement but changed his
plea after being confronted by the video testimony of his daughter
Elisabeth whom he raped on thousands of occasions, sometimes
staying downstairs overnight.
As the sentence was handed down, a composed Fritzl merely said:
"I accept the verdict."
Fritzl's lawyer, Rudolf Mayer, said his client found the verdict
"fair."
"After confessing to 3,000 instances of rapes, 24 years of
captivity in a cellar plus murder, it's obvious that such a
sentence will be handed down," Mayer told journalists. "Obviously,
he thinks this sentence is fair."
Before the verdict had been announced, Fritzl had made a last
expression of remorse.
"I'm sorry from the bottom of my heart," the 73-year-old retired
engineer told the eight jurors before they retired to quickly reach
their unanimous guilty verdict. "Unfortunately, I can't change
anything now."
But chief prosecutor Christiane Burkheiser said the remorse
shown by Fritzl was a sham.
"Don't believe him, he's shown his true face in trying to
exploit people's gullibility," she said of Fritzl and his stunning
change of heart on Wednesday when he pleaded guilty to enslaving
Elisabeth as well as murder.
The murder charge related to the death of a newborn twin boy
called Michael whom Fritzl did nothing to help when aware that he
was mortally ill.
Elisabeth Fritzl, now 42, went to the court on Tuesday to see
her father's reaction to 11 hours of video testimony she recorded
for the trial.
Mayer said her presence may have triggered the defendant's new
plea. "At the last minute, my client realised that Elisabeth was
sitting there," he said.
Elisabeth's lawyer Eva Plaz also poured scorn on Fritzl's show
of remorse, saying the woman wanted her father "to be held
accountable until he dies."
"Don't believe one word from the defendant. The defendant wanted
to be master over life and death," she said.
Fritzl had admitted the other four charges against him --
incest, rape, sequestration and grievous assault -- but pleaded not
guilty to murder and slavery when the trial opened on Monday.
Psychiatrist Adelheid Kastner told the court Wednesday that
Fritzl posed a danger and should be held in a mental facility.
Fritzl was emotionally stunted, the psychiatrist told the
court.
"He is aware -- he says so himself -- that he has an evil side.
He is aware that he was born to rape. He has that partly under
control. But as soon as he loosens his grip, everything erupts
out."
Fritzl, who ruled his family with an iron fist, locked his
daughter up in a cellar of his home on August 29, 1984. He said she
had joined an obscure sect.
Three of the surviving children were brought to live with Fritzl
and his wife Rosemarie, 69, while the other three spent their
entire lives in the dungeon, never seeing daylight.
The case broke last April after the eldest child, a 19-year-old
girl named Kerstin, fell severely ill and Elisabeth begged her
father to bring her to hospital.
DNA tests later confirmed Josef Fritzl was the father of
Elisabeth's six surviving children, aged five to 19.
The jury was told how Elisabeth had initially had to live
without hot water, heating, fresh air or sunlight in a narrow
cellar. Fritzl gradually expanded the dungeon to 40 square metres
(430 square feet).
Elisabeth and her family are now at a secret location while the
authorities attempt to help them build a new life.
Source: http://sg.news.yahoo.com/afp/20090319/twl-austria-trial-fritzl-4bdc673.html
