Fritzl refuses to leave cell

2008-05-05 20:48

Amstetten - An Austrian man accused of holding his daughter as a sex slave in a cellar for 24 years is refusing to leave his cell, authorities said on Monday.

Josef Fritzl, 73, has been held at a prison in St Poelten since admitting last week that he imprisoned and sexually abused his daughter for more than two decades in a windowless bunker beneath the family home.

The daughter gave birth to seven of his babies.

Prison director Guenther Moerwald told the Austrian news agency APA that Fritzl was an "unproblematic inmate: he's calm, collected and alert".

However, Fritzl was refusing to take the daily one-hour walk allowed in the prison yard. "He doesn't want to go out," Moerwald said.

Fritzl was still in a cell with another inmate.

"It's working very well. Of course, we've talked to his co-cell mate, who's told us he doesn't have any problem" with sharing a cell with Fritzl.

But the suspect was being kept apart from other inmates to prevent any potential violence. "That's a risk we don't want to take," Moerwald said.

Fritzl was not being treated differently from other inmates and has access to television, radio and reading materials. "He takes his meals in the cell. That's normal," Moerwald added.

Meeting with prosecutors

Fritzl will have his first meeting with prosecutors later this week, said prosecution spokesperson Gerhard Sedlacek on Monday.

"It is still the plan that the investigating prosecutor will have her first meeting with the accused on Wednesday or Thursday," Sedlacek said.

"For this reason and in preparation for the meeting, she paid a visit to Amstetten today (Monday) to give herself a picture of the house and the scene of the crime," he said.

Sedlacek said that an expert psychiatrist had been appointed to examine Fritzl's mental state. The suspect has so far only undergone a routine examination when he was first remanded in custody.

Fritzl's lawyer, Rudolf Mayer, told AFP that his client would plead insanity.

Mayer said: "I believe that someone who is said to have committed such a crime is psychologically ill.

"And if someone is psychologically ill, then they must be examined by an expert to determined whether the illness is so far progressed that they cannot be held responsible."

Malignant narcissist

A psychiatrist examined Fritzl on Friday and decided the father did not have suicidal tendencies, the prison chief said.

But Thomas Mueller, one of Austria's best-known criminologists described Fritzl as a typical case of a "malignant narcissist" in comments to Austrian public radio Oe3.

The malignant narcissist could only increase their own self-value by oppressing others, he said.

"They lock them in or inflict pain on them. The perpetrator wants to seen as powerful," said Mueller, who trained as a profiler with the FBI in the United States.

"To me, it's as if they have a black hole inside them. With every sadistic act, they try to fill that hole. But everytime they do something, the hole just gets bigger," Mueller said.

Asked why the criminal therefore persisted with the crime, Mueller explained: "For a short time, they experience a feeling of relief. They have the feeling they have power over life and death.

Increased self-worth

"But then the perpetrator sees that there are some things that didn't fit in with their fantasies. So they seek out another victim."

"Sexually abusing your own child is about power, because you're exercising control.

"It's easy to control a young, weak child. But when the child grows up, there's an increased danger that they'll rebel.

"So the perpetrator has to think pragmatically, such as building a bunker" to lock the victim in."

By making their captives totally dependent on them, they feel increased self-worth every time they bring them food, Mueller said.

- AP