February 4, 2012  Print Email | Fritzl case verdict to be out today
He admitted guilt on all charges yesterday
Posted by Agencies at 06:02 AM GMT on Mar 19, 2009 | ST POELTEN, Austria (Reuters): Josef Fritzl, who imprisoned his daughter in a cellar for 24 years and fathered seven children with her, is expected to be jailed for the rest of his life today.
Fritzl reversed his plea and admitted guilt on all charges in court yesterday after watching the daughter, he locked up and raped, describe her ordeal in an 11-hour video testimony.
The 73-year-old admitted enslaving his daughter Elisabeth in a purpose-built cellar under his house, and said he was guilty of murdering one of their babies by failing to seek help.
If found guilty of murder by the eight-person jury, the maximum sentence is life imprisonment, the minimum is 10 years.
Fritzl's turnabout also altered his plea from "partial" to full guilt on the rape count. He had initially admitted incest but denied murder and enslavement, the two gravest charges, at Monday's outset of the trial in St Poelten, west of Vienna.
Defence lawyer Rudolf Mayer, who said he had nothing to do with the surprise plea reversal, said Fritzl expects to spend the rest of his life incarcerated, even though under Austrian law a confession can lead to a reduced sentence.
The prosecution has asked that he be sent to a secure psychiatric hospital and the court could rule that he has to stay there indefinitely, irrespective of his sentence.
MURDER THROUGH NEGLECT
Fritzl admitted guilt for murder of the baby son, a twin, who died shortly after being born in the soundproofed cellar in the central town of Amstetten in 1996.
"I was hoping the little one would survive but I should have done something. I don't know why I didn't help. I just lost sight (of the issue)," he said in court on Wednesday.
The children held captive had never seen daylight and had to watch Fritzl repeatedly rape their mother Elisabeth, according to the prosecution, who say he treated her like his property.
"The basic need was for power. It is about domination, about power, about control," psychiatrist Adelheid Kastner testified.
Austrian daily Kurier reported Elisabeth had attended the trial unnoticed on Tuesday, when the media was barred from proceedings. Mayer declined to comment but said there were people in the viewing gallery whom he did not identify.
Fritzl's abuses came to light last April when he took the eldest child to hospital after she became seriously ill.
Elisabeth and her six children, three of whom were incarcerated from birth, are now living in an undisclosed location under new identities.
Three of the children were raised above ground by Fritzl and his wife Rosemarie after he told people that Elisabeth had abandoned them and joined a sect.
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