Josef Fritzl parole decision: Incest father could be released

WARNING: Story details sexual abuse which may be distressing for some readers

Notorious Austrian sex offender Josef Fritzl, who locked his daughter Elizabeth in a cellar for 24 years and sexually abused her and fathered seven children with her, could soon be leaving jail.

88-year-old Fritzl was jailed for life in 2009 and is currently being held at the high-security unit for mentally ill criminals at the Krems-Stein prison but is eligible for parole later this year.

Ahead of the parole decision, noted psychiatrist Heidi Kastner has prepared a 28-page report assessing the risk he poses and her conclusions have led to Fritzl’s lawyer claiming her client is now “harmless” and should come out from behind bars.

Kastner has repeatedly interviewed Fritzl, including during the initial investigation, and knows him well.

She found his dementia and increasing frailty means that he “can no longer be expected to act in a planned manner and, as a result, no longer commit any criminal acts”.

Josef Fritzl was jailed for life in 2009. Photo / Getty Images

Kastner has suggested that Fritzl, who now relies on a walker to get around and reportedly lives in a fantasy that sees him talking to his television, could be released to a nursing home to live out his remaining days.

The Kleine Zeitung quotes Kastner as saying his illness “overshadows his abnormality”.

Fritzl’s lawyer Astrid Wagner has seized upon the report and claims it shows her client is “completely harmless today”.

Wagner told Bild that she “wouldn’t be afraid to move into a shared apartment with him or live in a home with him,” adding that he “has no sex drive anymore”.

She said he keeps to himself in jail in prison, his only friend being a cannibal murderer who makes him schnitzel.

Alfred U, also represented by Wagner, was sentenced to life in 2019 for a series of offences including murdering a Hungarian prostitute and cooking her remains into goulash.

She told Kronen Zeitung: “I am already in the process of obtaining a conditional discharge for him. If the application is approved - which I assume will be the case - I would like to ensure that he gets a place in a home for frail people.”

Fritzl, in his own words

Last year Josef Fritzl released a book titled Die Abgruende des Josef F (The Abysses of Josef F), where he claimed to be a “good person” despite his horrific crimes.

In 2009 he was sentenced to life imprisonment for incest, rape, coercion, false imprisonment, enslavement and for the negligent homicide of one of his infant sons.

Fritzl’s daughter disappeared in 1984 at age 18, re-emerging in 2008 from the dungeon-like basement chamber in the town of Amstetten where her father had kept her captive. Fritzl built the basement himself.

The abuse resulted in the birth of seven children - three of whom remained in captivity with their mother.

One died at the hands of Fritzl, a matter of days after being born. He disposed of the body in an incinerator.

The other three were brought up Fritzl and his wife, Rosemarie.

An undated Police handout image showing a hidden bathroom in Fritzl's basement dungeon.

Fritzl told his wife that Elizabeth had run away to join a cult, that the children belonged to their daughter, and had been left on their doorstep as she was unable to care for them.

In the book, he also claimed he receives “hundreds of letters” from women he claims are in love with him.

He also spoke out last year via a statement released through his lawyer, and made the bizarre claim that he would be reunited with the family he so cruelly abused.

“I definitely believe that I am going to see them again one day,” he said.

Fritzl also said he missed his family “very, very much”.

“I am always thinking of them, and how I would like to see my grandchildren,” he added, referring to the children he fathered when he repeatedly raped his daughter.

“I am sure that we are going to be reunited and I think they are going to forgive me for what I have done.”