The infamous Austrian imprisoned and raped his daughter for more than two decades, fathering seven children.
ADVERTISEMENTAn Austrian man who had kept his daughter captive for 24 years and raped her thousands of times, fathering seven children with her, can be moved from psychiatric detention to a regular prison, a court ruled on Thursday.
The decision, however, stipulates that Josef Fritzl, 88, will have to attend regular psychotherapy and undergo psychiatric evaluations during a 10-year probation period at the prison, Austria Press Agency reported.
A request to release him from detention was rejected, but the decision is still a win for Fritzl's legal team, as conditions in a regular prison are considered an improvement over the strict controls in a psychiatric institution.
Fritzl became known as the "monster of Amstetten" after the northern Austrian town where he locked up his then 18-year-old daughter in a sound-proofed basement of his house in 1984.
Fritzl's wife, who lived on the second floor of the home with the rest of the family, was allegedly unaware of what was going on in the basement.
Over the next 24 years, he repeatedly raped her, fathering seven children, one of whom died.
Their daughter re-emerged in 2008 from the dungeon-like basement chamber. When the case came to light, it made headlines around the world, and in 2009, Fritzl was sentenced to life imprisonment for incest, rape, coercion, false imprisonment, enslavement and negligent homicide of one of his infant sons.
A three-judge regional court in the town of Krems ruled on Thursday that Fritzl, who now has dementia, could be moved to a regular prison based on a psychiatric assessment that he no longer poses a danger. The ruling overturned an earlier decision from 2022 when Fritzl's request to be moved to a regular prison was rejected.
"In summary, the court has come to the conclusion that it is indeed the case that he is no longer dangerous," Fritzl's lawyer Astrid Wagner told The Associated Press.
The verdict is not yet legally binding and prosecutors have 14 days to lodge an appeal, Austrian media reports.