Elisabeth 'looks 20yrs older'

2008-05-11 14:16

Vienna - Austria is grappling with the worst criminal case in its history, after a woman emerged two weeks ago from an underground cell where she was held captive by her father for 24 years, giving birth to seven children by him.

The story of Elisabeth Fritzl has surpassed another shocking sequestration case, that of Natascha Kampusch, who was kidnapped on her way to school in 1998, aged 10, and held captive in a basement near Vienna until she escaped in August 2006.

Elisabeth Fritzl, who is now 42 but looks 20 years older according to police, was locked up by her father Josef Fritzl in August 1984, aged 18, and repeatedly raped by him, bearing seven children in the windowless cell in her parents' building, where she was kept for almost a quarter of a century.

Investigators said Fritzl, now 73, began planning the secret dungeon in 1978, years before he locked his daughter up.

Justify his actions

Fritzl has sought to justify his actions, saying his daughter was unruly and he needed to protect her from the outside world.

Elisabeth was initially held in a single room of 35 square metres, accessible through eight doors, three of which had an electronic code known only to Fritzl.

The dungeon was extended after the young woman became pregnant from the sexual abuse and gave birth to several children.

Three of them - a girl now 19 and two boys, now aged five and 18 - remained incarcerated with their mother, spending their entire life in the cellar and never seeing daylight.

One baby died shortly after birth in 1996 and Fritzl said he disposed of the body in a wood-fired boiler in his building.

The three remaining children - aged between 12 and 15 - were placed in the custody of Fritzl and his wife Rosemarie, who seems to have been unaware that her daughter was sequestered a few floors below.

Fritzl told the custody authorities that Elisabeth had left the babies on his doorstep with letters saying she could not take care of them. He had previously declared her missing, saying she had joined a sect.

But social services have denied any wrongdoing.

He had integrity

"There weren't any doubts about his integrity," said court president Josef Schoegl, who ruled on the first custody case in 1994.

Josef Fritzl's criminal record was clean at the time.

But Austrian newspapers reported that previous charges for attempted rape and sexual assault were wiped from his record, as is the practice in Austria after five to 15 years.

The incest case came to light after the eldest cellar child, Kerstin, 19, was admitted to hospital on April 19 with multiple organ failure, which the doctors suggest could be a result of her incarceration.

Elisabeth was allowed out of the dungeon on April 26 to visit her daughter following the doctors' appeal for Kerstin's mother, and later revealed her incredible ordeal to police.

But many questions remain unanswered, including why nobody got suspicious earlier.

Former tenants of Fritzl, unaware for years of any strange happenings in the building, suddenly recalled odd details about their landlord after TV cameras from around the world focussed on the small town of Amstetten.

The case also restarted a debate in Austria over prison sentences for sexual offenders.

'I'm not monster'

Fritzl faces a maximum of 15 years in jail for raping and impregnating his daughter. If found guilty of manslaughter for the death of one of the cellar babies shortly after birth, he could be imprisoned for life.

Described in the media as a tyrant and a monster, Fritzl began fighting back this week with comments released to a weekly magazine by his lawyer, aimed at painting a more positive image of him.

"I'm no monster," Fritzl said, adding he had agonised over whether to free his daughter and adding that the abuse had become an addiction in the end.

He also told his lawyer, who has said his client may plead diminished responsibility, that he was glad to have a second family in the cellar.

Elisabeth, her mother and five of her children are currently recovering at a psychiatric clinic near Amstetten, where they are being kept away from the paparazzi, still intent on obtaining the first pictures of the family.

Doctors say it will be a while before they can return to a normal life.

Kerstin remains in hospital in an induced coma and relying on a life-support machine.

- AFP