Austria: Josef Fritzl allowed prison transfer

Warning: This article contains accounts of sexual assault and violence

Josef Fritzl, the Austrian man who held his own daughter captive for 24 years and incestuously fathered seven children with her, was allowed transfer from a specialist detention center for "mentally abnormal criminals" to a regular jail.

Thursday's ruling was made by a panel consisting of three lawyers at the regional court in Krems, northern Austria. It was based on a psychiatric appraisal which found that the now 88-year-old no longer meets the requirements for preventative custody.

"The expert opinion states that he is no longer dangerous for health reasons alone," explained court spokesman Ferdinand Schuster ahead of the ruling.

A case that drew global attention 

Fritzl was sentenced to life imprisonment in March 2009 after being found guilty of incest, rape, coercion, false imprisonment, enslavement and the negligent homicide of one of his infant sons.

The case came to light in 2008 and made headlines around the world.

In 1984, he imprisoned his then 18-year-old daughter in the soundproof cellar of his house in the village of Amstetten, regularly raping her and conceiving seven children.

He was found to have caused the death of one newborn by failing to seek medical help despite knowing the baby was in danger of dying. He became known as "the monster of Amstetten."

Fritzl, an electrician who has since assumed a new name, was being held in Stein prison near Krems, where he had been undergoing therapy.

In 2022, the Higher Regional Court in Vienna upheld an appeal by the public prosecutor against a previous decision to transfer Fritzl to regular custody, saying at the time that there were no "convincing indications" that Fritzl was no longer a danger.

mf/wmr (Reuters, dpa)