Austria: Trial of incest-imprisonment suspect Josef Fritzl expected to start before year's end

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Austria: Trial of incest-imprisonment suspect Josef Fritzl expected to start before year's end

Tuesday 24 June 2008
By: WILLIAM J. KOLE, The Associated Press
VIENNA, Austria

The Austrian man accused of imprisoning his daughter for 24 years and fathering seven children with her is expected to go on trial before the end of the year, authorities said Tuesday.

Franz Cutka, a spokesman for a national court in St. Poelten in the province of Lower Austria, said the trial of 73-year-old Josef Fritzl likely will begin this autumn or winter and that preparations already are running "at full speed."

Prosecutors allege that Fritzl has confessed to holding his daughter captive in a windowless cell he built beneath his apartment in the town of Amstetten west of Vienna.

Authorities have said DNA tests have confirmed Fritzl is the father of six of his daughter's children. Fritzl has said he tossed the body of the seventh child in a furnace after it died in infancy.

Fritzl remains held in pretrial detention in St. Poelten, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) west of Vienna. His alleged victims _ including the now 42-year-old daughter investigators say he imprisoned when she was 18 _ are getting counseling at a psychiatric clinic.

Prosecutors are expected to begin interviewing Fritzl's wife, daughter Elisabeth and the children sometime next month, Austrian public broadcaster ORF reported Tuesday.

Fritzl's lawyer will be given an opportunity to ask questions of Elisabeth via a video hookup, and footage of the questioning will be presented during the trial itself, Cutka said.

Acknowledging intense worldwide media interest in the case, Cutka said journalists would be required to accredit themselves for the trial and would be issued "reserved tickets" to cover the proceedings.

He did not say when the accreditation process would begin, but said the court would videotape and photograph the trial and make images available to media. Judge Andrea Humer will preside over Fritzl's eventual trial, Cutka added.

Fritzl is expected to be formally charged after authorities wrap up their investigation, which is still ongoing, officials said.

Investigators allege that Fritzl kept the affair secret with a cover story that Elisabeth ran away at 18 to join a religious cult.

Fritzl and his wife raised three of the children he fathered with his daughter after Fritzl claimed Elisabeth left them at the doorstep of the family's home. Authorities say the other three were confined underground and never saw daylight until they finally gained their freedom in late April.

The case came to light after one of the children Fritzl fathered, who is now 19, became seriously ill and was dropped off at a hospital on April 19. Doctors unable to find any of the young woman's medical records appealed to her mother to come forward, and officials say Fritzl released Elisabeth, who opened up to police.