Fritzl daughter 'very strong'
2008-05-05 18:28
Vienna - Five children of Austrian dungeon victim Elisabeth Fritzl, who had been imprisoned and raped by her father for 24 years, are slowly getting to know each other, a lawyer representing the family said.
The condition of the children was "encouraging", Christoph Herbst, a lawyer looking after the interests of 42-year-old Elisabeth said. "The children are now finding each other," he told Austrian state broadcaster ORF.
Three of the children, fathered by 73-year-old Josef Fritzl, were taken by their father (and grandfather), who then claimed they had been abandoned by their mother.
The three remaining children spent all of their lives in the windowless dungeon underneath the Fritzl's family home in the town of Amstetten. One of the dungeon children remains in an artificial coma at a local hospital, the others are being treated together with their mother and Fritzl's wife Rosemarie at a nearby clinic.
"She is a very strong woman," Herbst said of Elisabeth, who had been abused by her father since the age of 11.
Experts warned that the victims would need a very long time to work through their ordeal.
After being lured in the basement by her father, the girl who was then aged 18, was handcuffed to a pillar and later kept on a leash only long enough for her to reach a toilet, reports said.
Amstetten's authorities are meanwhile reaping criticism from abuse experts who allege that officials had missed warning signs in the past that something had been very wrong in the Fritzl family.
Josef Fritzl, who is being detained at a prison in the provincial capital St Poelten, was "calm and contained", prison officials said. His lawyer Rudolf Mayer said on the weekend he was considering entering a plea of insanity. - Sapa-dpa
- SAPA