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Police knew of incest dad in '67
02/05/2008 17:02 - (SA)
Vienna - A police file on the man who held his daughter as a sex slave in a cramped dungeon for 24 years, revealed he had a previous sexual assault conviction, an Austrian regional newspaper reported on Friday.
Oberoesterreichische Nachrichten reported that details of the previous conviction - and another for attempted rape - had turned up in a police file in the state archives of the Upper Austria region.
The authorities in neighbouring Lower Austria, where the case of incest was uncovered last weekend, have claimed for days that they knew nothing about possible earlier convictions of Josef Fritzl, 73.
But the newly discovered file allegedly covers the suspect's attempted rape of a 21-year-old woman in a forest near the city of Linz in September 1967 and the sexual assault on a 24-year-old woman in Linz a month later.
The documents, which were locked away from the public eye for a period of 50 years in accordance with Austrian law, had now been handed over to the prosecutors in St. Poelten in Lower Austria.
'Examined very carefully'
Earlier this week, the retired electrician admitted to imprisoning and sexually abusing his daughter Elisabeth for more than two decades, fathering seven children by her.
Prosecution spokesperson Gerhard Sedlacek said the old file was expected to arrive "in the next few days" and would be "examined very carefully".
Sedlacek insisted, however, that no public comment would be made about the file's content because, also in accordance with Austrian law, the convictions had since been expunged from Fritzl's criminal record.
Depending on the severity of the crime, a conviction in Austria can be expunged after five but no longer than 15 years, unless the crime carries a life sentence.
Much has been made in the Austrian media of the fact that Fritzl had apparently been previously convicted of sex crimes.
But police investigating the case insist that when he reported his daughter missing to the authorities 24 years ago and routine background checks were carried out, his criminal record was clean.
The same was true when Fritzl, who impregnated his daughter seven times during her ordeal, applied to legally adopt three of the children born out of the abuse.
He claimed Elisabeth had run away to join an obscure religious sect and deposited them on his doorstep asking him to look after them.
Public horror and outrage at the Fritzl case has triggered widespread debate in over whether Austria's current sentencing for sex crimes is too lenient.
- AFP
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