AFPJosef Fritzl in the courtroom in Sankt Pölten in 2009
NOS News•Thursday, 09:47•Adjusted Thursday, 11:48
Convicted murderer and sex offender Josef Fritzl must be transferred from a TBS institution to a regular prison in Austria, a court has ruled. The transfer is not yet final: the Public Prosecution Service still has 14 days to appeal the decision. Until then, Fritzl will remain in the clinic.
The now 88-year-old Fritzl is known as the ‘Amstetten Monster’. In that Austrian city he held his daughter captive in his cellar for 24 years. He fathered seven children by her, one of whom died in captivity shortly after birth. His wife would not have known anything about it all those years.
The case came to light in 2008 when one of the children, a 19-year-old daughter, became critically ill and he took her to the hospital, where a doctor became suspicious and called the police.
In March 2009, Fritzl was sentenced to life in prison for, among other things, murder due to negligence in the care of the baby, incest and thousands of cases of rape of his daughter. Since then he has been staying in an institution for mentally ill criminals, comparable to a Dutch TBS clinic. The court wants him to continue to undergo treatment after his transfer.
Step towards release
According to a recent psychiatric report, Fritzl suffers from dementia and therefore, according to his lawyer, he no longer poses a danger to society. She said her client was deeply moved by the court’s decision and regrets what he did.
After Fritzl’s transfer, she wants to apply for provisional release. That’s not possible while he’s in the clinic.